Re: SPEC: Intergeneric hybrids

From: HIPSource@aol.com

In a message dated 1/3/00 10:45:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
jcwalters@bridgernet.com writes:

<< Isabella Preston, Specialist in Ornamental Gardening at the Central
 Experimental Farm in Ottawa, Canada was a careful record keeper, as one
 would expect a person in her position to be. Her KOOTEANAY was recorded by
 the AIS as being both registered and introduced. There is no other Kootenay
 listed in any AIS Checklist, nor should there be according to the
 long-standing rules of the AIS.>>

I'm sure she was a lovely woman. I do hope someone will take a look at GARDEN 
IRISES to see what they think it means to be saying.

 << There is no pedigree information for TRUE BLUE in any AIS Checklist. What
 is the source for this pedigree? The Checklists are not infallible or 
omniscient, but it is impossible to assess the value of this additional 
information without knowing its provenance.>>

Surely the last goes without saying. From the Chronicle we Fryer saying "TRUE 
BLUE. As the name denotes-a true blue-and the best blue Siberian I have ever 
seen. The plant and foliage are all that one could wish, and the flowers are 
born on stiff stems 30 inches high. The falls are as good or better than 
Perry's Blue, and the standards are a shade darker. It is a seedling of Snow 
Queen." As I recall his pedigrees are all pretty well unknown since he did 
little artificial hybridizing. All that said, one is prepared to bear in mind 
that the provenance of the info in question is an AIS book edited by Dr. 
Randolph so perhaps there is some information not readily at hand. Perhaps 
there have been two plants, one informally named. 
 
<< This was speculation on my part, but there appears to have been enough
 confusion about nomenclature that it remains a possibility.>>

I personally have sensed little actual confusion in the early literature on 
this point. 
  
 <<Fryer's was in Minnesota; Wayman's was in New York and Florida. Can we be
 sure that they both had the same understanding of the usage of orientalis?
 BTW, the '39 Checklist does not recognize "aurea" as a valid name for any
 iris species.>>

We are talking about the junior Fryer with this iris, not the old man 
discussed above, but it may be observed that his father had clear ideas about 
Sibericas and had tangled with Grace Sturtevant on them. In an article called 
Siberian Iris, published in Flower Grower Magazine in 1920, however, he 
states that I.orientalis would not bloom for him. Presumptively he did better 
with SNOW QUEEN, which I believe is the white form thereof.  He was, however, 
extremely interested in "Iris Aurea" and in another article on this subject 
in the same magazine in 1921 described his problems in getting hold of a true 
form, having been sent " Ochraleuca sulphurea or Pseudacorus" a number of 
times.  

I believe the species in question will be found in the 1929 and 1939 Check 
Lists as SPURIA AUREA (Lindley, 1847). It is now known as I. crocea, per the 
BIS book.  

Which is about as much as I feel inclined to expand on these issues, other 
than to say if I was going for the wide cross I'd try fulva or Dorothea K.

And so to bed.

Anner Whitehead
HIPSource@aol.com

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