For the 2024 Olympic Games, the gardeners of the Parc Floral de Paris have succeeded in hybridizing in vitro a dahlia in the colours of the Olympic flame. This feat has made it possible to locally produce 50,000 plants, which now adorn the capital’s flowerbeds. Soon, they will be in the hands of the athletes.
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You may have come across them at an iconic site in Paris: 50,000 dahlia plants. olympic » have been planted in the capital. This original creation of the Parc Floral de Paris, declared « official flower of the Games “, will adorn the podiums in the hands of Olympic medalists. An immeasurable honor for the teams that made its development possible.
” We have very robust stems, slightly dark foliage, a flower that stands out because it is very orange-red, a bit flame-colored. Finally, I think we have about twenty flowers per plant. “, explains William Beuzeboc, head of the culture laboratory in vitro of the City of Paris. The last six months have been dedicated to the production of 6,500 in vitro plants of the Olympic dahlia.
The birth of the Olympic dahlia
Multiplication begins in the stem cell by removing the area where cell division takes place. This area is then placed in a fertile, refrigerated medium. With this technique, we have a 99% chance of having healthy feet. “The 6,500 plants are then sent to the Rungis horticultural center where the teams take cuttings of the dahlia until they obtain the 50,000 plants now scattered throughout Paris.
The stem cell of the Olympic dahlia was born from the hands of municipal gardener Christophe Kneblewski. The Parc Floral has had an international dahlia competition since 1988. So I thought, ‘why don’t we try to make some hybrids and present these flowers?’ » Christophe Kneblewski then selected a French camellia and crossed it with a Dutch dahlia.
In 2015, the Olympic dahlia was born under the name Parc Floral de Paris. Nine years later, this flower, a veritable escalation of petals, would adorn the bouquets of Olympic medalists. The Olympic dahlia had also won the international competition prize in the year of its creation, in 2015.
Read also“The Olympic Games produce an urban project that is completely unique in the history of world urban planning”