Sean asked:
<< If SPEC-X becomes popular with advanced bearded enthusiasts who'd like
to inject some species qualities into their hybrids*, what's to stop
the medal from becoming a TB- or bearded-only award like the Dykes? >>
Sean, we should be so lucky, but the species look is what they are trying to get away from. They backcross to species from time to time for one reason or another but a species look is not often what they are working for.
There may be the occasional exception, an oddball little iris that pitches up somewhere, but in the last analysis, if the plant looks like a species cross, that is, it is remarkable for its species-like salients, and it is genetically descended from two or several species, as, arguably, are all the garden hybrids, then what, exactly, is the problem?
Now, do you understand genetics? Pedigrees? I'm not good at it. I am good at history. What happens with this scenario, from a hybridizer's perspective, do you think:
Suppose we limited SPEC-X to irises which were either, 1) an F1 of two natural Iris species of any kind, or 2) an F2 where three of the four grandparents were natural species clones with no fewer than two species involved, but the fourth grandparent could be anything at all, even an advanced hybrid. This last would give the fellow with an interesting bee pod, or a lost label, or a fertility problem--or a wild and crazy intuition--some wiggle room. What would that pitch up, do you think? I'd insist that the provenance of the species be known, myself. Provenance matters, that I do know.
AMW
