re: CULT: red amoena

Kent  --  I'm sure you know this already, but just for clarity's sake:  Since there isn't yet a true red in iris petals, when we say "red" we mean that the flower is in the red spectrum.  That can range from red-violet to maroon, to a near brick red.  Neil or others can explain better than I the factors that are involved in this, but it means that, so far, any "red" iris, looked at closely, will show greater or lesser components of other colors, violet being the one I see most often.
 
I think a possible reason that there aren't more red amoenas is that we have kept trying to get more red out of existing reds, and it just ain't there.  Over the years, I have tried crosses with LATIN HIDEAWAY, LATIN LOVER, RINGO, NAVAJO BLANKET, some of my own seedlings and probably others that I have forgotten, all of which were in the neighborhood of red amoenas.  None of these produced anything as close as the parents.  The cross that DID produce something close to a red amoena was 93B8: (TRUDY x WABASH) x SWEETER THAN WINE.  Both of the keeper seedlings have STW's rim on the falls.  The flower form, however, wasn't modern enough.  These are pictured below.  The first photo is G954K13; the next is its sibling, G954K14, which has picked up too much blue in the photo, making it appear violet.  (But that, of course, is because there is blue in it.)
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ultimately, I decided on another approach, crossing two amoenas, neither of which was a "red", and that produced 01S3, which you have pictured.  It also produced 01S16, below, which isn't quite red (but might still be called a red) and doesn't have desireable form.
 
 
 
Here, below, is another photo of 01S3, underexposed because of the broken light meter.  The true color of the falls is somewhere between as they appear in the digital photo taken by my friend and fellow irisarian Mac Shawe, which you posted,  and in this underexposed photo.  This does show the smooth velvet texture of the falls, however.
 
 
I now have pods from 01S3 on several other flowers, including some reds that may interest you, and will post these later.  It's way past bedtime.  --  Griff
 
zone 7 in Virginia
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kent Appleberry" <appleb@cut.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 1:39 PM
Subject: [iris] [TB][HYB] Red Amoenas

> I'm curious about what the reddest amoenas are, and about why there seem
> to be relatively few of them in comparison to the number of red self
> bearded iris.  I'm talking about what qualifies as red in bearded iris,
> such as BATTLE ROYAL.  I haven't done any thorough search, but in going
> through the list I compiled to get my iris collection started ($3 and
> under to try to limit the damage to my budget), with hundreds of
> cultivars, the closest I've found to a red amoena is LATIN HIDEAWAY
> (Nichols 86). 

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