Actually closer to 90,000 named cultivars (sic) at this point in time.
the 65,000 total was from a few years back. And then there are the
unregistered names. It takes some creativity to come up with a new name
that is acceptable.
Some species are quite variable, and some are fairly uniform. Some
have a lot of colour morphs and some only have one. But each clone
different from another clone in a number of variables. Part of what
makes it tricky to pin down a species as sometimes features can
overlap with others. An interesting read is Edgar Anderson's papers on
looking at setosa, virginica and versicolor. They were published in
1928 and 1936 ( close to those dates) and can be found in several
places. For a good feel for this, check out you local wild species.
Look carefully at differences between clumps. Doesn't have to be iris,
it can be any wild species. Many, many years a go, as a young lad, I
looked at variations in Canada Lily. Over one summer I collected about
20 variations . Petal colour, height, number of flowers per stalk,
form of flowers, number of dots, size of flower, and amount of
texturing on petals etc. Can still picture many of them.
So there can be many big variations on just small variations on a
theme.
Chuck Chapman
-----Original Message-----
From: 'aclyburn17@frontier.com' aclyburn17@frontier.com [iris-species]
<iris-species@yahoogroups.com>
To: iris-species <iris-species@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Feb 7, 2015 3:58 pm
Subject: Re: [iris-species] naming irises
65,000 NAMES???
Some of those names must be getting pretty far fetched if not just
plain weird by now...
I have a question for you and the rest of the list:
How often do you see usual forms in species iris?
Thanks,
Anita Clyburn
On Saturday, January 31, 2015 5:07 PM, "Sean Zera zera@umich.edu
[iris-species]" <iris-species@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Â
Some more naming basics:
There are roughly 250 to 300 wild species of irises. There is no exact
number, partly because not all species are yet known to science, but
mainly because not all botanists agree on which plants are distinct
species. This is often because the plants themselves don't seperate
neatly into the discrete units people would like them to! To name a new
species, youÂdescribe it in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, at
which point it is considered published. Preserved specimens are stored
permanently, commonly at a university, so that future scientists have
access to an example of the exact plant you were talking about.
Gardeners use cultivar names to uniquely identify clones of irises in
cultivation. These could be unique forms of wild species, or more
commonly garden hybrids. To name a new cultivar, you introduce it by
offering the plant for sale to the public, publishing the name and
description in a nursery's catalog. Popular plants like irises will
have an official registrar group to try to keep track of all the
cultivar names. It is not required that you registerÂyour cultivar, but
doing so helps to prevent accidentally duplicating one of those 65,000
names.
Sean Z
