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Re: unusual forms in species [3 Attachments]

 

It was undoubtably just the one flower. That one's unusual, but one-off developmental weirdness in iris flowers is quite common - I bet most of us get some every year. Commonly the merosity (number of parts) goes wrong in a single flower. Irises are obviously normally 3-merous, but here are photos of a 2-merous paradoxa and a 5-merous prismatica.

Broken color patterns which resemble chimerism are found in many irises. It can be stable and genetic, so there are a *lot* of bearded cultivars with that trait, as well as some Louisianas ('Splitter Splatter') and (I think) Japanese. I've never seen it in an otherwise wild-type species iris, though. Here's a photo of color extremes on 'Joseph's Coat Katkamier'; normally each flower is streaked randomly with both colors.

Sean Z
Zone 6a
SE Michigan

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 5:31 PM, 'a*@frontier.com' a*@frontier.com [iris-species] <i*@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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Sean,
What about the iris in this picture: SIGNA: The Species Iris Group of North America
It's labelled as a chimera.
I'm wondering if it was just that one flower or were all the flowers on that plant like that?
[I never will forget the first time I saw a picture of the 'Twin Sisters' or 'Twin Beauties' peony cultivar.
Each flower on the plant was half one color and half another.
Thanks,
Anita Clyburn

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SIGNA: The Species Iris Group of North America
Species Iris Group of North America About Us Membership Publications Seed Exchange Species Database Spec-X Add Comments Iris versicolor #26 of 43
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On Saturday, February 7, 2015 5:01 PM, "Sean Zera z*@umich.edu [iris-species]" <i*@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


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I've seen thousands of plants of the three iris species native to Michigan, but only once found one of an unusual color. Plenty of normal variation, though (see hereÂfor example). Conversely, I found about a dozen variegated plants in the wild just this past year alone, as well as a few albinos. No irises yet.

The way to increase your chances of finding unusual variation is to examine many, many plants, either by roaming the wild or raising lots of seed in the garden.ÂSearching in the wild means nature does most of the work and you don't have to grow bazillions of seedlings yourself, but most of the unusual forms will have been weeded out by natural selection.

Sean Z
Zone 6a
SE Michigan



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