Lagerstroemia ‘Miss Sandra’

Lagerstroemia indica x fauriei ‘Miss Sandra’

‘Miss Sandra’ resulted from a pollination between an unregistered purple-flowered seedling collected in San Antonio, Texas, as female parent and ‘Tonto’ as male parent ( Egolf, 1990 ). ‘Miss Sandra’ was selected as an elite purple-flowered seedling (CM78) within the progeny of this cross-pollination. The new crape myrtle was selected at the Thad Cochran Southern Horticultural Laboratory in Poplarville, Mississippi, a climate characterised as USDA Hardiness Zone 8B ( USDA, 2015 ) and AHS Heat Zone 9 ( American Horticulture Society, 2015 ). Seedlings were screened under normal field conditions in containers with irrigation from above.
The plants were exposed to intermittent stress conditions caused by full sun, cool spring nights, high humidity and summer drought. These conditions are generally considered favourable for the development of common diseases in crape myrtle: bacterial spot disease ( Xanthomonas axonopodis ), powdery mildew ( Erysiphe australian ), Cercospora leaf spot disease ( Pseudocercospora lythracearum ) and the so-called “Rabbit Tracks” disease. Other seedlings tested under the same conditions as the three selections got the diseases. The cultivars ‘Miss Frances’, ‘Miss Gail’ and ‘Miss Sandra’ were registered in 2015 with the US National Arboretum, the international registration authority for Lagerstroemia , in accordance with the International Code for the Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants - 2009 ( Brickell et al., 2009 ).
(Source: https://journals.ashs.org/view/journals/hortsci/50/11/article-p1721.xml)(Source: https://journals.ashs.org/view/journals/hortsci/50/11/article-p1721.xml)