Three same age seedlings from IMMORTALITY, CELEBRATION SONG, and
TRANS
ORANGE breeding.
The only one that has bloomed so far is the
little one in the
foreground. It produced a short (foot tall) stalk this
spring with one
or two blooms. Although they might look similar to
surviving increases
off a rhizome that died, this is the size of the
foliage mature rhizomes
of this little critter produces. Now that it's
started raining and
cooling off again, it will make <more> foliage,
but not a whole lot
bigger.
Seems to happen fairly frequently in
seedlings from IMMORTALITY and
relatives - very small rhizomes,
<abundant> increase, lots of small,
"grassy" foliage. I think I
remember Walter Moores saying he saw some/a
lot of the same kind of thing
from rebloom crosses. Seems to show up
with greater frequency in some types
of crosses than others. Always
produce a lot of foliage, few bloom stalks,
usually very low bud count
(4 at most), very retro blooms (narrow, droopy
falls, small flowers).
I've always assumed it was coming from
recombination of genes from dwarf
ancestral contributors to both some once
blooming (probably mostly I.
aphylla?) and reblooming TBs.
Who knows
what kind of dwarf gene combinations you are getting from
arilbreds
combined with TBs, but if there are TBs on <both> sides of
your
seedling's family tree, there is potential for dwarf in
the
seedling.
Or maybe it's just a sickly mutant of a totally new
and different type
<g>
--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA
zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American
Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
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archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
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