Re: AIS: REF: AIS as International Registration Authority

Anner;

 

            As with all things there is a great deal of complexity. I will take you second question first: Are photos useful?  One might ask the same question of text. The answer of course is yes and no. If one has a written description as Blue certainly it doesnt tell you a lot. If it is accompanied by a number from the Royal Horticultural Society color chart it becomes somewhat less vague, but still not an absolute certainty. A color photo would probably add nothing at all to the understanding of the hue of the color, and would probably be off in some way depending on the film or camera that was used. But photos do allow one to see how that color is distributed, and can show patterns, form, and other characteristics that are hard to put into words. By the same token, our present text descriptions lack size determinations. How tall, wide, etc. is that flower in the picture? Some years back when I was first developing an interest in Iris one section produced a checklist without
 heights being given. When I enquired about this, I was told that they were so variable depending on cultivation, that they werent worth listing. While I believe a range is probably more truthful, I dont distain a given height that was measured by the hybridizer and presented at registration. I do find it a little ridiculous to take a height in inches and present it as the exact figure to a tenth of a decimal place in centimeters, just because that is the math equivalent. I guess the point I am trying to make is that any description has intrinsic problems, a photo only adds a limited amount of information. Without other types of information like provenance, or knowing that the plants is part of a small list of plants, it is really impossible to identify a cultivar from any description. When we judge a show for example and a specimen is called into question we can only say whether the plant fits the description not that it is absolutely that plant. We are really only checking
 whether there are grounds for disqualifying the plant not validating it. Even DNA comparisons at the level done today truly only can exonerate a criminal, they otherwise have an error rate when it comes to proving them guilty. Granted, the more rigorous the work, the less chance of error. There is added value to having a photo, but it is not a panacea. Besides photos are not just for identification, but stimulus for dreams.

 

Finally; how long would a media be needed to last I can not say. If we use as a standard how long a cultivar remains available in gardens you have cases such as Susiana and Swertii that have been in cultivation for 500 years.  

 

(An interesting aside) According to the horticultural code a cultivar is determined by its description. If a plant is lost and new crosses are made that fit that description you have just recreated that cultivar. I bet a lot of Iris people would find it hard to accept that concept.

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