I've seen a lot of conflicting information on hybrid flower colors, and the most succinct guides often seems to be wrong. I am especially confused by the "special" hybrids that are the same color as non-hybrid colors, but that you apparently need to get some other hybrid colors. Does anyone have reliable, succinct information on how to get all the hybrid flower colors?
Animal Crossing New Horizons – How to Get All Hybrid Flowers
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Best Answer
Well, how familiar are you with Mendelian genetics and punnett squares?
Yes, really.
New Horizons' flower system uses genetic alleles to determine color. Most flowers have 3 "genes" that control color (roses have 4!), and depending on whether they have the dominant gene (denoted by uppercase), the recessive gene (denoted by lowercase), or a heterogeneous mixture, a.k.a. your "special hybrid" that looks like 1 color, but secretly carries genes for rarer flowers.
This will all make more sense with an example.
Behind the Scenes
Each flower item has a "genetic" code of 4 binary bit-pairs. Every store-bought flower has the same genome. For example, any Red Rose bag you buy from the Nooklings will have the genetic code of:
11-00-00-01. (The game treats the10and01pairs identically, and hereafter I will always use01to reflect a mixed dominant+recessive gene.So, when two store-bought Red Roses breed, their children can be:
11-00-00-00(25% chance)11-00-00-01(50% chance)11-00-00-11(25% chance)Unfortunately, while the genes share some similarities, the exact genetic combinations that result in particular colors is species specific. Further complicating things, there is no indication in-game as to what genotype a given phenotype (or "Color" as we lay-people might say) has.
This is why Blue Roses are so gosh-darned hard to breed -- not only do they require very specific genetics (
11-11-11-00), many of the hybrids you breed along the way have ambiguous phenotypes!If you breed two Store-bought Whites (
00-00-01-00), and you get more white roses, they can be either00-00-01-00or the rarer00-00-00-00-- both of which show up as white-in game... and that extra recessive allele means that no matter how many of those white tulips breed with one another, they can only ever produce more white tulips! (Store-bought Whites breed Purple 25% of the time, normally)The Purple Pansy
Genetics is why there's not a single-step way to reach Purple Pansies, too. Purple Pansies requires
11alleles for both the Red and White genes. Since all store-bought seeds have only a single allele, doubling up on both alleles requires an intermediate step.Breeding store-bought Red
11-00-00and White00-00-01Pansies will give an ambiguous phenotype of either01-00-00or01-00-01(both of these will be Red). You can guarantee the appropriate genetics if you breed a blue pansy first (there are 3 genotypes, but all have the11White gene we want), then breed the blue pansy with a store-bought red. The result will be a either a Red (Or Orange) plant with a01-00(01)-01genome that can be bred with itself for that coveted purple.So how do you breed a Blue Rose from store-bought seeds?
A blue Rose requires genetics of
11-11-11-00. The good news there is, once you get a pair, they'll always breed more blues. The bad news is, there's a bit of guess and check involved. Here's the chain:First Generation - Initial Hybrids
Breed Store-bought Yellows (
00-11-00-00) and Store-bought Whites (00-00-01-00). These give you whites (00-01-01-00) 50% of the time (discard any color not otherwise mentioned).Breed Store-bought Whites with themselves (
00-00-01-00). These give you purples (00-00-11-00) 25% of the time.Breed Store-bought Yellows (
00-11-00-00) and Store-bought Reds (11-00-00-01). This will give you Orange (01-01-00-00) 50% of the time.Second Generation - The Hybrid Purple
To further progress, we need a Purple with Yellow genes,
00-01-11-00. This is the only part of the chain where we have to guess at genetics. Breed the Purple and White from the first generation with each other, and separate any purple offspring.Take the purple offspring and breed them with Store-bought yellows. If the flowers result in yellow offspring, they have the appropriate genetic code. (
00-01-11-00vs.00-00-11-00). Take this purple and breed it with the Orange from the first generation. The offspring you're looking for is also Orange01-11-01-00, and breeds 12.5% of the time.Generation 3 - Seeking the Blue Rose
Breed the orange from the last step with itself. This combination will rarely give the elusive blue rose itself (6.25% of the time). If you get a Red child, however, it will have a genetic code of
01-11-11-00, and when bred back with itself, has an even 25% chance of producing blue roses.Once bred, blue roses breed true with one another, always producing more blue roses.
Flower Phenotype Charts
But enough science talk - let's see some charts! For the below, a Pale Yellow background indicates a Store-bought flower. A Pale Blue background indicates a Hybrid flower found on a Nook Miles ticket tour (such as Big Fish Island, etc.)