Help needed: rare examples of Louisiana iris species

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We need your help in locating rare examples of Louisiana iris species.  Do you have any native species clones from Dalton Durio’s Louisiana Nursery?

The Society for Louisiana Irises, and the Greater New Orleans Iris Society, has begun a program to preserve the diversity of the native iris species.  The Species Preservation Project is seeking to maintain permanent collections that represent the full diversity of i. brevicaulis, i. fulva, i. giganticaerulea, i. hexagona, and i. nelsonii.  Almost all of the diversity in color, form, and geographic origin is no longer accessible from commercial sources, and many variations are no longer to be found in the wild.  Most regrettable has been the disappearance of the very extensive collection of species clones from Dalton Durio’s Louisiana Nursery in Opelousas. 

But we have made a strong start in the last 15 months since being chartered by the SLI, and have a substantial variety of color and forms from Texas to Florida to Arkansas, and Illinois.  We have now a beginning collection of 120+ unique clones, most donated by Benny Trahan and Patrick O’Connor of the New Orleans area, plus recent additions from Buddy Manuel, Rodney Barton, and others.  We are establishing stewards in different geographic regions to protect the collections from a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, that could wipe out multiple collections in a single area, such as south Louisiana.  Brian Shamblin of the Chattanooga, TN area is our newest steward.

But we are missing some especially important ones that were in the past contained in the 2001 catalog of Durio’s Louisiana Nursery.  First in priority is a wild-collected white brevicaulis.  We have a single rhizome of “Trail of Tears”, a white product of a cross between two blue brevicaulis seedlings, kindly donated by Rodney Barton of Texas.  But we do not yet have the following examples shown in Durio’s 2001 catalog:

i. brevicaulis ‘Alba’, nor ‘Blue-Blue’, nor ‘Deep Blue’

i. fulva ‘Dwarf Red’, ‘Dwarf Yellow’, nor the Arkansas natives ‘Galloway-Lanoke’, ‘Helena’, ‘Thompson’, ‘Toltel Indian Mounds’

i. hexagona ‘Alba’ from Florida

i. nelsonii (8 clones from Durio)

Durio’s nursery was a commercial operation with a very strong focus on Louisiana irises, and many of you probably have examples you originally obtained from him.  Please let us know so we can obtain examples to add to our permanent collection, and prevent the extinction of the remarkable diversity of these unique North American wildflowers.

Thanks,

Charles Perilloux

Baton Rouge, LA

225-753-2182