PHOTO: a Spec-X cross that went psycho on me

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Hello all.....

 

    I'll admit right off that sometimes I make wide crosses on the spur of the moment.  So ZERZURA, a Ben Hager white 1/2 AB with a black signal and a gray beard was blooming, as was I. junonia blue form, yellow beard.  I thought, what if I could put that white bib from junonia on a decent colored arilbred seedling and maybe even transfer a signal.  Now, Zerzura is 31 inches tall, while I. junonia is 20-26 inches tall.  Here are the 3 seedlings that germinated.  More fodder for the trashpile!

 

Elm

 

First was a 36 inches tall mid purple-blue that had the white bib and a lovely mid-lavender beard.  The form is a little old-fashioned.  Great branching!  Deep purple eyelashes at the tips of the beards.....this pattern did come from the arilbred lines.

 

 

 

Second to bloom was white with long old-fashioned falls but interesting purple eyelashes around the beards!  Tall, like the above seedling.

 

 

The third was a total shock!!!!!  Now I wonder.....did a TB somewhere back in Zerzura's ancestry carry a gene for broken color?  Or did the broken color pattern lie in the genes of I. junonia?  I grow no broken color patterned iris of any kind.  And no one around me grows iris.  A nice lavender beard with purple eyelash pattern at the tips of the beards.  The standards and falls are rounded, like in arilbreds.