Re: Iris foetidissima - Any hybrids with?

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Iris foetidissima has a lot of potential.  Contrary to the present books, research has shown it to be rather closely related to the dwarf spuria species, such as Iris graminea. Indeed it has been crossed successfully with graminea and produced a plant like graminea but with the decorative red seed pods of foetidissima. Unfortunately shortly after seeing her origination mature, Edith Cleaves had to move and transplant them at a very bad time of year and she lost all the seedlings. This is why they do not appear in the checklist. One would expect that foetidissima could be crossed with any of the spuria species and might help to reduce their size and of coarse bring the colorful pods. In return the other species might provide more colorful, less muted flowers. Although foetidissima is constantly berated for its muddy flower colors there is supposedly a clone collected in the Picos Mountains of Spain with bright pure yellow flowers.

tesilvers <tesilvers@yahoo.com> wrote:

Does anyone know of any wide-cross hybrids between I. foetidissima
and any other species? I've seen mention of I. foetidissima as a
possible parent of 'Holden Clough' but if I remember right, it seemed
pretty speculative.