Re: Re:Re: RE Odd plicata markings

I had the same reaction to the question of what pigment is involved.

I wish there were a way to sample very small areas chemically to determine for
certain what actually is going on.

The question of patterns showing some similarity to plicata markings has been
a question I would have liked to raised many years ago.  LULU MARGUARITE and
others had dots of yellow pigment scattered between veins on the falls, and
often gave almost a shimmer effect to the coloration.

A seedling I retained from among several from a cross of Dream Dance X Lulu
Marguerite way back then showed the yellow, presumably beta- or
alpha-Carotene, pigment without the anthocyanin of the parents.  The over all
pattern of the flower was of a "Joyce Terry" type yellow band around white
centers on the inside of the standards and upper sides of the falls, but the
yellow was laid on in discrete dots which gradually merged into solid yellow
toward the petal edges.  I found this fascinating.

In a moment of whimsey, I registered the seedling as HEY JOE and coded its
color pattern as a W2Y, knowing full well such a thing did not exist.  But, I
figured, if we could call Jean Stevens' PINNACLE an "amoena" why could we not
call a yellow dot-distributed pattern of yellow on white a "plicata."  To this
day I have stood alone, and rather wish I had not "pushed the envelope" in the
matter.

When I saw Leslie Blyth's registration of one of hers as a "plicata" I thought
I had found a successor in the nomenclatural adventure, but then it turns out
hers actually WAS a plicata--just a very minimal and faint one showing the
anthocyanin markings deep in the hafts.  The pod parent was in fact a
plicata--BROADWAY which she had crossed with the pink BEVERLY SILLS.

I haven't been aware of anything like either of these since.

Incidentally, Colleen, you are quite right in Iris anthocyanins, but in other
(related) genera other anthocyanins that have fewer of the 3', 4' and 5' sites
of the basic anthocyanin molecule with -OH radicals attached in place of
simple Hydrogen are quite a lot redder than those in irises.  At the reddest,
the pigments can be downright scarlet and spectrum red--as in some Gladiolus
and Montbrecia, and particularly in dicot genera such Pelargoinium (geraniums
of the trade).  One would hope we might find a way to get our iris pigments
altered so that we too might have these bright true reds.

Neil Mogensen   z 7  western NC mountains

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