Re: REF: Old Book
- Subject: Re: REF: Old Book
- From: J* a* C* W*
- Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 19:50:49 -0700
From: "Jeff and Carolyn Walters" <jcwalters@bridgernet.com>
> From: "Michael D. Greenfield"
> Just bought a Iris book at a flea market. $3.00. " IRIS For Every Garden
"
> by Sydney B. Mitchell. Have just looked through it . Written in 1949,
> updated in 1960 with new color plates.
> Any History on this one? Did Mr Mitchell introduce any.
Michael,
Sydney B. Mitchell (1878-1951), professor and later director of the School
of Librarianship at the University of California-Berkeley, was one of the
pioneers in the development of modern TB iris. After his friend William
Mohr was killed in an auto accident in the early 1920's, Mitchell took
charge of Mohr's extensive seedling collection and selected, named, and
introduced many important cultivars from among them, including PURISSIMA,
LOS ANGELES, and SAN FRANCISCO (the first American Dykes Medal winner). In
the '30's he made a major contribution to the creation of large-flowered,
tetraploid yellow TBs from his own breeding lines as exemplified by HAPPY
DAYS ('34). By the forties his hybridizing interests had shifted to
plicatas. Lloyd Austin started the development of Space Age irises with
some of Mitchell's unintroduced plicata seedlings that showed signs of
incipient appendages.
"Iris for Every Garden" was a good general purpose introduction to iris
growing at the time it was written. I have a copy of the first edition,
which has almost completely different pictures than the ones you listed,
though I expect if we were to compare the texts there would be few
differences.
Jeff Walters in northern Utah (USDA Zone 4/5, Sunset Zone 2)
jcwalters@bridgernet.com
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