Table 1.  Production and postharvest performance of eleven cultivars of trachelium grown at Bradenton, FL.  Seeds were planted 11 Nov. 1998 and plugs transplanted to ground beds 21 Dec. 1998.

Cultivar Flower
color		 Stem
length
(cm)z		 Stem
diam
(mm)y		 Stem
wt
(g)x		 Inflorescence diam
(cm)		 Days
to
harvest		 Vase
life
(days)		 Total
rank
sumw
      White cultivars    
Lake Powell White 92 8.7 62 15.4 169 8 42.5
White Umbrella White 72 7.7 28 13.6 160 11 33.0
      Blue cultivars    
Summer Blue Wonder Violet blue 90 9.0 65 16.0 163 9 56.0
Meri Blue Violet blue 81 8.7 52 11.8 162 9 39.0
Purple Umbrella Violet blue 88 8.1 43 13.3 163 10 38.0
Lake Success Violet blue 82 8.6 42 12.3 162 9 34.5
Blue Wonder Violet blue 86 8.4 46 11.7 164 9 31.5
Summer Lake Superior Dark violet 86 8.2 47 10.7 165 7 20.5
      Purple cultivar    
Lake Superior Dark purple 95 8.8 60 12.3 166 8 42.0
Lake Avalon Purple 88 8.4 52 13.0 166 8 33.0
Lake Sunset Red purple 84 8.5 51 11.8 166 8 26.0
                 
LSD0.05   12 0.5 17 2.5 5 0.6  
z 1.0 inch = 2.54 cm
y 1.0 inch = 2.54 cm
x 1.0 oz = 28 g
w Cultivars were ranked for each of the attributes and the Total Rank Sum of all attributes (TRS) was used to select the best cultivars.  For two-way ties at a given rank, rank n and n + 1 were replaced by rank n + 1/2, which was assigned twice, and the next rank was n + 2.  Three and four-way ties were handled similarly.