Re: SPECIES: why here? germanica

I wasn't even aware there was a species parallel to Iris-talk until Linda Mann mentioned it.  What's the URL? or should I ask "How does one join?"
 
I also didn't realize Robert Pries would have been cut out of the loop if the discussion we've enjoyed had been moved to the more appropriate site(s).  What a loss that would have been!
 
As far as not-cross posting is concerned--I can point to this exception--right here.
 
The roots-and-origin material is something I cannot imagine lacking interest and value to anyone interested enough in irises to participate in this list OR Iris-photos.  Pedigrees and family trees mean a great deal to me and I just naturally assume they do to everyone, but I have some advantage over many of the members. 
 
Along with Keppel, Ghio, Harder and Moldovan who were all about the same age I was, we learned from the really "old timers."  There are several other members of these lists now that date from the same decades we do, and I don't mention them by name because I didn't have the good fortune to get to know them first hand when I was still active in the AIS.
 
Those were the days when *we* were the kids of the tribe and grew--for ourselves--many of the grand and wonderful irises named in those pedigrees almost all the way to the right-hand side of the page.  They weren't "historics" then--just inexpensive state-of-the-art materials those in their teens or twenties could afford.
 
I don't know if Joe Ghio or Keith Keppel grew Lent A. Williamson, La Neige, Purissima and such but I'll bet they did.  I know they did grow the next generation or two of things because those are the ones they registered seedlings from.  I  had only the oldest ones because I had a fabulous resource in one of the very, very old timers--Mary Tharp.  I couldn't afford $20 irises.  I waited for them to get to the give-away stage mostly.
 
I was using New Snow and Snow Flurry along with Chivalry and such at the same time as other folks, and love to read the pedigrees/family trees that trace back to those treasures of the past I knew and grew first hand.
 
To talk about species and origins is meat for the grinder for anyone who really wants to understand what is going on now, and to grow some of those early varieties that trace back to species origin in two generations or three is a terrific education for anyone who loves irises. 
 
I think my first tagged cross was in the late '40's and was of Purissima X Magnifica, only three generations away from species and a few diploids of uncertain ancestry. The results grew at an astonishing pace and were the healthiest and ugliest bunch of mutts anyone ever saw, but the fun of growing them hooked me for life.  For compelling reasons I've taken a very long vacation from iris, but I did raise a lot of iris babies back in the dark ages of irisdom.  I registered several, intruduced some and should have kept most of them home and made compost of them.
 
My mistakes are included in three of the seven published Check Lists, none of them being the most recent two.   I read and wrote substantial quantities of the kind of thing we do here on Iris-talk, but used stamps and mailbox instead of the "Enter" or "Send" buttons.  I've known or met or had correspondence with some wonderfully helpful folks that I wish were still around today--using stamps and gasoline instead of a hard drive and a mouse. 
 
I'm still learning the protocol or manners appropriate to our way of doing things now.  I appreciate the patience of those who learn right with me.
 
Neil Mogensen  z 7 western NC
 
 
 
 

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