Hi Loïc,
Actually the mellita I used for CLOWN PANTS was a clone I had
bought from Terry Varner's Ohio Gardens even more years back than the yellow
one in the picture. Both of the ones in the picture had just arrived from
Arrowhead Alpines Nursery. CLOWN PANTS' father had the rusty reddish-purple
flower color and delicate foliage and flowers just like the rubromarginata in
that picture. The only distinguishing difference would have been the red leaf
margins. The mellita in the picture aside from being yellow, is also different
in how substantial looking the foliage is. The father of CLOWN PANTS didn't
have such broad leaves.
I originally had kind of hoped that these two
variegata X rubromarginata seedlings would look like CLOWN PANTS as a
confirmation or proof that CLOWN PANTS' parentage is correct. But now I'm glad
that they're looking like they do. And there are still two more seedlings, one
of which looks very different in growth habit. Unlike the two that have
bloomed, one is much more tall and doesn't have any increase yet. Maybe this
one will look more like CLOWN PANTS. One thing I have found from my
experiences with species crosses, is that you shouldn't expect the F1 to be
uniform. I've seen a surprising amount of variation in appearance among F1. I
guess this makes sense, considering the outbreeding nature of irises.
Best
wishes, Tom
By the way, you're not alone in having difficulty keeping
mellita (or rubromarginata) alive. I've already killed two mellitas and one
rubromarginata so far. I just reordered another mellita from Arrowhead Alpines
so that I can try to get some more F1 hybrids from it. Thankfully, the hybrids
are infinitely more easy to keep alive!
From: "loic tasquier"
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So, if i
get it right, from the second picture with the 2 suaveolans, the yellow one
(mellita) is Clown Pant's father, and the purple one (rubromarginata) is your
cute purple seedling's father.
is that right?
Here i has a
Mellita once, but it didn't resist the winter. Clown Pants is much tougher,
it's still here!
Loïc
