Re: I. kashmiriana - karyotype (was Re: squalens, sambucina etc)

A few things off the top of my head. I have inquired about the Iris plantings of Randolph at the Cornell plantations. No one has been able to show there is anything left. Mitra Randolph's co-worker is still alive, I believe, and had a graduate student working on Irises with a dissertation in 1992. In the last 12 years I suspect most everything has been lost.
I e-mailed Brian Mathew last year about kashmiriana and we both suspect there are no plants of the early collections still extant here or in Europe. I recieved pictures from Nigel Service of kashmiriana taken in Kashmir. The purple form seems very close to what we have in our gardens as kashmiriana but neither fits the early descriptions of the species. I have several chromosome counts for Kashmiriana, at the moment I don't have the time to go through my records, but whether the counters had even the right plants is open to speculation. I am straining my memory but I seem to think the kashmiriana that was involved in early hybrids was 55 chromosomes. Don't even quote me on that because I would need to go back and recheck my sources. It is sad how much we don't know and how few sources of information there are.

Neil A Mogensen <neilm@charter.net> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: m*@msn.com
To: i*@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 3:36 AM
Subject: [iris-species] I. kashmiriana - karyotype (was Re: squalens, sambucina etc)
 
"I am curious if anyone knows which "I. kashmiriana" clone the published karyotype cited was derived from?  The plant I received and grow as I. kashmiriana appears to me to be a diploid I. pallida x I. variegata type cross, although it could conceivably be a tetraploid of similar origins.  I am wondering if this is the clone the karyotype was taken from?"
 
Dave, all I think I remember is seeing the karyotype in *Garden Irises,* but do not have my copy here at the present.  It is in Tennessee, along with a number of other iris books and *Bulletins,* at my daughter's place.
 
The karyotype of *Iris kashmiriana* is in the context of work from L. R. Randolph, and knowing how careful he was, I have considerable confidence in his publications.  As I mentioned above, I believe that karyotype appears in *Garden Irises.*  I have not searched TWOI enough or recently enough to know if it is reprinted there.
 
The clones of collected "kashmiriana" include diploid, 44-chr. *germanica* type hybrids and full tetraploid(s).  At least one of the tetraploids was collected in what we now call Afghanistan, on an irrigation ditchbank in the SW part of the nation.  That is the "Kashmir" of the early records, I believe.
 
The tet. form, among others, was in at least one or two gardens in England late in the nineteenth and probably early in the twentieth century.  Michael Foster arranged with various people working or travelling in the eastern Mediterranean to have collected irises sent him, and he is said to have tried crossing almost every possible combination from those.  After he died in 1907 Robert Wallace introduced a number of them, among which 'Kashmir White' is listed, but without pedigree. 
 
All this appears in J. Wister's history of early iris hybridization and development which I believe is printed in both *Garden Irises* and in TWOI, where in the latter the comments about Foster and Wallace appear on pp. 48-49.  Judging from Wister's summary, we aren't going to be able to identify any of the species origins of these early hybrids (or species, for that matter) without the molecular studies such as DNA fingerprinting, if possible, of extant early hybrids and possible species, such as the readily available 'Amas.'
 
On p. 15  of TWOI there is a listing of TB species, among which appears, "*kashmiriana* Baker 1877.  44 Sim. 1932, R&R 1934, 48 Rand. 1934, R&M 1956.  A diploid form, with 24 chromosomes is also known."
 
This means a 48-chromosome clone was in the posession of Randolph and counted in 1934, and by Randolph and Mitra in 1956.  What has become of that clone I have no idea.  It may still be growing at Kew, or at Cornell where Randolph was on faculty.  The 44-chromosome clone was counted by Simonet and published in 1932.
 
I get the impression from the off-handed way the 24-chromosome form is mentioned that it was not thought very significant.  Perhaps that reads too much into the text.  Your speculation that what you have or have seen resembles too much a hybrid between *pallida* and *variegata* and may not be an authentic *kashmiriana* diploid sounds entirely probable to me.
 
The possibility that the clone may be authentic, however, simply underscores the close affinity among the various n=12 species and hybrids (excepting the polymorphic *Iris aphylla* and its closely-related sister "Balkan" species).  It is impossible to assume the wild tetraploids appeared out of nowhere.  They *must* have arisen somehow from the diploids, so similar or nearly indistinguishble karyotypes should not be a surprise.
 
If you have a contact at Cornell, it might be worthwhile to see if Randolph's collection of species irises has been maintained, and if *kashmiriana* is among them.  A similar query to someone associated with or having access to the collection at Kew might also be productive of information--or better yet, a division of the species clone(s).
 
Neil Mogensen  z 7 western NC mountains


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