plant named ‘Smithopus12’

Latin name of the genus and species:hybrid.

Variety denomination: ‘Smithopus12’.

The new cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventor to produce newhybrid cultivars with strong stems, large panicles, compact habits, and attractive flower aging. The crossing resulting in the new cultivar was made in summer of 2011 in a backyard in Windham, NH.

The seed parent is the cultivar‘Martha W’, unpatented. The pollen parent is the cultivar‘Golden Experience’, an unpatented tree peony hybrid. The new cultivar was found and selected by the inventor in 2017 in the same backyard in Windham, NH. Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar ‘Smithopus12’ was first performed at a research laboratory during 2018 in the Netherlands by tissue culture. Through subsequent confidential propagation, multiple additional generations have been reproduced, having shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type.

The cultivar ‘Smithopus12’ has not been observed under all possible environmental conditions. The phenotype may vary somewhat with variations in environment such as temperature, day length, and light intensity, without, however, any variance in genotype.

The following traits have been repeatedly observed and are determined to be the unique characteristics of ‘Smithopus12’. These characteristics in combination distinguish ‘Smithopus12’ as a new and distinctcultivar:

Plants of ‘Smithopus12’ are similar to plants of the seed parent in most horticultural characteristics, however, plants of ‘Smithopus12’ differ in the following:

Plants of ‘Smithopus12’ are similar to plants of the pollen parent in most horticultural characteristics, however, plants of ‘Smithopus12’ differ in the following:

Plants of ‘Smithopus12’ can be compared to plants of the commercial cultivarintersectional hybrid ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, unpatented. Plants of ‘Smithopus12’ are similar to plants of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ in most horticultural characteristics, however, plants of ‘Smithopus12’ differ in the following:

Plants of ‘Smithopus12’ can be compared to plants of the commercial cultivarintersectional hybrid ‘Singing in the Rain II’, U.S. Plant Pat. No. 19,374. Plants of ‘Smithopus12’ are similar to plants of ‘Singing in the Rain II’ in most horticultural characteristics, however, plants of ‘Smithopus12’ differ in the following:

The photographs were taken using conventional techniques and although colors may appear different from actual colors due to light reflectance it is as accurate as possible by conventional photographic techniques.

In the following description, color references are made to The Royal Horticultural Society Colour Chart 2015, except where general terms of ordinary dictionary significance are used. The following observations and measurements describe ‘Smithopus12’ plants grown outdoors in Camarillo, CA. The plants were 2 to 3 years old from large tubers, grown in 5-gallon pots. Temperatures ranged from 5° C. to 10° C. at night to 12° C. to 30° C. during the day. No artificial light, photoperiodic treatments were given to the plants. Measurements and numerical values represent averages of typical plant types.