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HYB:PHOTO; R 19-1 [was: Anomalys (garbage? any theories ?) ]

In response to both Betty and Sandra, I might comment--
 
There have been a number of times I've seen rather dramatic change in an iris from first bloom to later appearance, and have given some thought to why the change, mostly for the worst.
 
New seedlings <may> be free of some of the various viruses that inevitably become part of our plants, such as the tobacco mosaic virus for example.
 
Before infection with the viruses, the plant's energy, its chemistry and even its genome is one thing, and after, another.  It won't look the same.  This was the reason Orville Fay, many years ago, took his own Hall-ancestry pinks and bred one back to *Iris pallida* ( he used a named clone ) to claim the apparent virus resistence many clones of the species have.  Then he bred this back into his line.
 
His project got reinforced when he bred his pinks to Snow Flurry (one generation away from a "Pallida Pink"--THAIS), New Snow (a child of Snow Flurry x Katherine Fay), and inbred seedlings through sib and inter-seedling crosses.  From this he selected LIPSTICK, a "red" bearded white retaining a lot of the qualities the Snow Flurry family contribute.  Several generations of this sort and the *pallida*-bred seedlings produced more and better versions of these and eventually RIPPLING WATERS, a phenomenal and very widely used parent--and a winner of the DM in 1966--resulted.  If you look at the pedigree family tree linked from the HIPS DM list photo of it and scan down the right hand columns--especially the next to the last one you will find Snow Flurry or New Snow more than once, and *pallida* right near the top of the chart on the extreme right.
 
Fay's objective was virus resistance--which he apparently did get--along with a lot of good qualities such as ruffling, attractive foliage and a line of winners.  Many, many of his irises are involved in the ancestry of the good things we grow.
 
One other thing that can make a first year seedling anomalous (what a good word!) is some of the internal chemistry the mama packed into the endosperm of that seed.  The first year baby still has some of that circulating through its vessels, I would think.  Whether this is true or not, and whether if true, makes any difference I cannot prove.  But it could help contribute to those amazing shifts in quality both directions--to the better or to the worse.
 
I had a seedling R 19-1 posted after its maiden bloom in 2003 as a rather plain, but nicely colored, orchid-rose sort.  It didn't look like anything special:
 
 
R 19-1 in 2003--Maiden bloom
 
Then this past season it looked like this after lining out in better soil:
 
 
R 19-1: Power Woman X Fogbound in 2004
 
Not only is the branching better, the flower is astonishingly wider and fuller and the color shifted toward amethyst.  Definitely a "keeper,"  this sure does illustrate the change from worse to better (the exception), but also says something about the enhancement of quality by going to the *pallida*-rich heritage of the blues and whites. 
 
FOGBOUND is going to be recognized, I suspect, as one of the great "Benchmark" breeders in the development of Tall Beardeds.  Its seedlings are phenomenal.  I look forward to seeing advanced generation babies from its heritage. In the meantime, what fun they are to grow!
 
Neil Mogensen  z  7  western NC mountains

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