Re: Iris abicans


There had been some discusion last year re fertility of albicans
because there were no bee pods with lots of opportunity. It turned out
to be fertile by hand pollination.

A theory re this;
Albicans was propicated and distributed by some arab cultures as
sacred and as a plant to place on a grave. The pollinator of choice
for iris are bees. Bees need a signal to attract them to flowers. This
usually is a dark anthocyanin signal in center of flower or a path
signalsuch as the veining on Iris variegata.  Barring this they need a
signal that is visable in infrared light. It would seem it lacks any
of these signals to attract bees. 
On this line a number of the iris plants in the wild lacking these
signals would have almost no offspring and would only be propagated by
rhizome propagation as seems to have happened with albicans, in this
case as the white flower had religious significance to som humans.

Does this make any sense?

Chuck Chapman





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