Ken,
Those are pretty.
Mark A. Cook
On 6/4/2020 5:37 PM, Kenneth Walker kenww@astound.net [iris-species] wrote:
> I'm attaching a couple photos of seedlings of Iris decora. Two years ago
> I crossed a "typical" plant (as pod parent) with a "giant" plant (as
> pollen parent). The typical plant was grown from seeds that came from
> the NARGS seed exchange. It is likely of Chinese ancestry. The giant
> plant came from seeds collected in Nepal, where other large plants have
> been collected in the past. In addition to differences in bloom stalk
> length, branching and leaf width, the Nepali blooms are somewhat smaller
> and take a slightly different form from those of the typical plant. I
> made the cross as an informal test to see how reasonable it is to lump
> them into one species. The fact that the cross produced viable seeds is
> encouraging.
>
> I have 7 seedlings from the same cross, but just 2 are blooming this
> year. The pollen parent is currently blooming profusely (too bad each
> bloom lasts one afternoon). The first bloom on the pod parent opened
> today, but I'm not sure I'll get much more than that this year.. I also
> have one seedling each from Nepali plants from 2 different collection
> locations (the pod parent is the same).
>
> Even with hand pollinating, if you don't remove the anthers before they
> ripen, there is a small risk of self-pollination. Although I think it is
> small for this species. The stalk on the first plant is slightly longer
> than a long stalk on a typical plant. The bloom is intermediate in size
> although the form is closer to the typical plant [I like the two tone
> effect contrasting the falls with the standards]. The stalk on the
> second plant is at the upper limit of what I've seen on a typical plant.
> I'd say its blooms are slightly closer in form to those of the Nepali
> parent when compared to its sibling. On both seedlings the leaves are
> much closer to the width of a typical plant than two the Nepali plant.
> Sadly, each seedling has only one branch rather than the more extensive
> branching of the pollen parent. All-in-all I'm quite confident that the
> seedlings have the Nepali plant as a pollen parent.
>
> The next question is "how fertile are the seedlings themselves?"
>
> Ken
>
>
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