Re: Tectorum X bearded again


Tom, thank you for the information on 'Paltec'.  Don't know the answer but will start looking for it.  Also, thanks for all that information on making crosses - makes my head spin.  Mostly, thanks for the additional photos - reaffirms what I said earlier - really stunning!!
 
Regards, Charlotte
thomas silvers <tesilvers@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dennis, Christy and Charlotte,
Thank you for the compliments. By the way Charlotte,
has the old iris 'Paltec' ever been imported into
Europe? It is very similar to my 'Flying Dragon'
although somewhat smaller flowered and with smaller,
less glaucous and more tidy foliage. If you can find
it, I bet you'd like it too. Unfortunately it has
never set any seeds (that I know of).

And, hopefully one day it will be possible to grow
irises of the crested X bearded type from seeds. So
far, I consider myself lucky to have gotten even one
viable hybrid seed. Most of the crosses I've tried
between Iris tectorum and beardeds have resulted in
aborted and balloon pods. I'm still trying though, and
have got pods swelling right now.

I plan to generate a "fertile family" from this kind
of hybrid.I figure there are two obvious routes to
fertile tectorum/bearded hybrids.
     
1.)Create a tetraploid tectorum and then cross with
the modern tetraploid Tall Beardeds. The offspring
should be interfertile amphidiploid types with 12
pairs of chromosomes (24)  from the Tall Bearded
parent and 14 pairs from the tectorum (28), for a
total of 52 chromosomes. I think this would be the
most productive route. Especially, since you could
utilize all the amazing advancements (and I apologize,
knowing that the species purists are cringing now) of
the modern Tall Beardeds (size, color range, flower
form, reblooming tendency, etc.).

2.)Cross diploid Tall Beardeds with diploid tectorum
to get sterile hybrids like 'Paltec' and (presumably)
'Flying Dragon'. These sterile hybrids could possibly
be converted to fertile amphidiploids by chromosome
doubling (induced by colchicine or other chemicals).
This approach has certain problems: mature plants are
hard to convert, and seed is not abundant enough to
use seedling conversion method.

The reason why I said "(presumably)" about 'Flying
Dragon' being a diploid hybrid, is that I don't know
who its bearded parent was. I had tried many different
beardeds (mostly diploid but some tetraploid). It
looks like it was one of the diploid pallidas since it
has papery spathes and is so tall, but it's possible
that it was a modern tetraploid Tall Bearded. This
would make 'Flying Dragon' have 14 single chromosomes
from tectorum and 12 pairs (24) from the bearded;
instead of the 14 single from tectorum / 12 single
from bearded that would be the result of using a
diploid bearded. The only way this question could be
answered would be by chromosome counting.

Anyway, Thanks again guys, Tom
P.S. Here's two more pictures of a freshly opened
bloom of 'Flying Dragon'.


     
           
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> ATTACHMENT part 2 image/pjpeg name=FlyingDragon02.JPG


> ATTACHMENT part 3 image/pjpeg name=FlyingDragon03.JPG

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