Which tetraploid offspring are you speaking of, please?
My understanding is to produce a natural tetraploid pallida would involve an unreduced egg mating with unreduced pollen grain, which would be a long shot.
I don't smell grape when I smell I. pallida. I smell grape when I smell 'Alcazar.'
Thanks.
AMW
-----Original Message-----
From: David Ferguson <manzano57@msn.com>
To: iris-species <iris-species@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Jun 2, 2011 5:27 am
Subject: RE: [iris-species] Tetraploid Iris Pallida?
Also, I don't know anything about a tetraploid I. pallida, but see no reason why such could not exist, and perhaps do exist right under our noses (have to count the chromosomes to be sure, and I suspect not all cultivars have been counted). Unreduced gametes can occur in pure species just as well as in hybrids (and in fact unreduced gametes in I. pallida are probably why several of it's tetraploid hybrid offspring have been tetraploid instead of diploid or triploid).
As for I. pallida 'Dalmatica', it is not very different from several other I. pallida that I have, and I don't have a strong feeling as to whether it was field collected or grown from garden seed. My impression was always that it was originally field collected, but I don't remember if that is documented anywhere. 'Odoratissima' is quite similar to it in many characters and can be difficult to tell from it (though it averages a tad smaller and shorter). They both have the strong "grape soda" smell that is so characteristic in Iris pallida. However, if memory serves correctly, 'Dalmatica' does not produce pollen (but does set seed easily when pollinated by other I. pallida clones), while 'Odoratissima' produces abundant fertile pollen (and also sets seed rather easily and freely).
Dave Ferguson
To: i*@yahoogroups.com
From: i*@aim.com
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2011 21:29:56 -0400
Subject: Re: [iris-species] Tetraploid Iris Pallida?
I can't speak to the tertraploid issue, but I'm quite convinced that Dalmatica is not a collected plant, but a garden plant, That is very likely a pallida seedling, of some sort. It has too many differences from species.
Chuck Chapman
-----Original Message-----
From: C*@aol.com
To: i*@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, Jun 1, 2011 12:43 pm
Subject: [iris-species] Tetraploid Iris Pallida?
Greetings.
Has anyone ever run into anything in the literature about what was, or might have been, or what looked like, a natural tetraploid form of Iris pallida?
I haven't, nor has Phil Edinger, nor Mike Lowe, but there is a reason for my asking, so I now bring the question to you.
It's a long story, but I've got a description here of a nineteeth century plant which was by some considered the same as 'Dalmatica', but a contemporary author whom I consider reliable distinguishes them, so I am wondering.
Phil says the spontaneous appearance of a natural tet seedling would be a very rare thing, indeed.
'Dalmatica' has been described in the literature--even by the same writer-- both as a form of I. pallida, and also as a hybrid of that species. This appears to have started with Dykes who, in the course of his career, was inconsistent on the matter.
So, has anyone ever seen anything anywhere about a natural tet pallida? I think I recall that Sam Norris made a tet pallida but that would have been through artificial means.
Cordially,
AMW
