Re: CULT: elongated rhizomes

From: HIPSource@aol.com

In a message dated 4/13/99 8:24:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
vincelewonski@yahoo.com writes:

<<  The elongated rhizomes did not suffer from poor bloom - they had great 
bloom and increase. There were several  different varieties involved, all 
TBs. I don't think you
 can identify the variety by the rhizome shape. >>

The most extraordinary elongated rhizomes I have seen were on the iris listed 
on the Unknowns portion of the HIPS page as the BSU unknown. The irises had 
not been divided for some time, but some of them had defintely bloomed, and 
rebloomed. Anyway, this is a very vigorous iris and it was growing in what 
might be termed favorable conditions and when I got permission to remove a 
few rhizomes for study some of them were eighteen inches long, and generally 
firm to the tip. One Y shaped one was about that long with another coming off 
it that was about eight inches long. Perfectly amazing. All the growth action 
fanwise was in about the last four inches. 

About the shape of the rhizome as a means of identification. I've wondered 
about this. You see a lot of variation in the older irises especially. Some 
are short and chubby, some less so. Some produce increase all along the nodes 
at the sides, and even at the back, some seem to just keep heading forward. I 
hesitate to offer conclusions about any of this since my growing conditions 
are crappy and a lot of the irises I'm talking about were rescued from years 
of seeming neglect, but I do think that the as the leaves can, and I belive 
that this formal salient, as any other, could be studied and proven useful 
for distinguishing between irises, if not for identifying them.  For example, 
I'd personally be hesitant to say that two historic whites growing side by 
side and looking otherwise very similar were the same if they routinely 
pitched up different shaped rhizomes and if thise differences persisted when 
the rhizomes were grown on away from the mothers.

Anner Whitehead
HIPSource@aol.com

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