HYB: Changeable seedling

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I know most irises will change from their first bloom to subsequent ones, but I have never heard of one changing like this one has.  It bloomed for the first time in 2003, one perfect stalk on one weak fan, obviously a bloom-out.  I loved the blue-black satin standards over the black velvet falls illuminated by a sunflower yellow beard.  I cut the stalk, put it on my dining table and almost cried over it, because I was so sure that first stalk would be its last.

 Later that fall I found a shoot coming up where the plant had died.  I protected it.  It grew well and made a good clump that bloomed in 2005.  I felt really disappointed.  It didn’t look at all the one I remembered.  The falls were dark violet with mahogany hafts.  The beards were rust.  I believed it had to be a different sibling.  For three years it bloomed like that.  It was a good grower with nice stalks, so I lined it out.  Some of my iris club members chose it as their favorite of my seedlings, but I couldn’t care much for it.

 One morning this April when I went to that iris bed, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  It was bursting into bloom, and every blossom was just like the first one.  I am still amazed by it.  I didn’t know that beards could change color, but these have from brilliant orange-yellow to dull rust and back again.  The first picture shows it this spring.  The second as it looked in ’05, ’06 and ’07.  I am planning to register it, but every year I will wonder which blossoms it is going to have this time.

Francelle Edwards  Glendale, AZ  Zone 9