Re: SPEC: HYB: crested hybrids

From: Bill Shear <BILLS@hsc.edu>

Dennis--the BIS Species Group book says that hybrids between cristata and
tectorum exist, but the authors do not document this, and as you may
recall, I am loathe to accept simple statements like that without some
supporting data.

I have tried several times to cross tectorum and milesii, which look to be
much more closely related than cristata and tectorum, but without success.
The seedlings turn out pure milesii or pure tectorum, in those few
instances when seed was produced.  Most of the time there just isn't any
seed or pod.  I think the seeds that did result were from a failure to
properly protect the cross.

Arguing from general appearance, cristata and tectorum are not very close.

Rodionenko divided up the crested irises as follows:

	Section Crossiris:  Series Japonicae (japonica, speculatrix and wattii)
	                    Series Tectores (tectroum and milesii)
	Section Lophiris    (cristata and lacustris)
	Section Monospatha  (gracilipes)

This doesn't cover all the species, and it has also been argued that
speculatrix be transferred to Chinenses (and the JPW photo of odaesanensis
certainly points up a similarity at least in gross appearance between
Chinenses and Lophiris), and rossi from Chinenses to Lophiris.  It appears
that tenuis also may have more in common with Chinenses as well.  Having
seen it only once or twice, I am struck by gracilipes as an intermediate
between japonica-types and cristata-types.

In my own view, just based on observations of the plants, I would guess at
a closer relationship between the Japonicae of Rodionenko and his (not
everyone else's) Lophiris, while considering Tectores a stand-alone group.

Tectorum has been crossed with bearded irises, and some of the crested
species can be switched back and forth between Lophiris and Chinenesis--so
should we consider crested irises to be the "missing link" between bearded
and beardless irises?

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@mail.hsc.edu>

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