Re: BUTTERFLY WINGS

Bill Shear wrote:

:  Can anyone provide information on on old variety called Butterfly Wings?
:  This was supposed to have been a cross of Iris susiana x tetraploid tall
:   bearded. 

It's a fifty-year saga, so hit that DELETE key now or hang on --

The 1949 checklist shows the name was registered in 1945 for a Tall
Miscellaneous Bearded cultivar bred by C. G. White, but reports no record of
introduction at the time of publication.  Although this was the code used for
oncobreds of that era, the listed pedigree shows no aril heritage.  

Lloyd Austin listed BUTTERFLY WINGS as a 1946 White introduction, with a
different pedigree:  (Pink Jadu x I.susiana) X (Theme x Sacramento).   From his
1956 catalog:  " An oncobred as beautiful and as captivating as the wings of a
tropical butterfly, veining that comes from its grandparent, Susiana.  I picture
a whole cluster of Butterfly Wings, like a swarm of freshly alighted
butterflies.  Above, the coloring is translucent lilac blue -- below, it is rich
parchment prominently veined in mulberry, crimson and russet brown.  The exotic
charm of true Oncos, but borne on yard-high, well-branched stalks..."

Now -- are they really one and the same?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  There are two
possibilities:

1.	The clone that was described in the '49 CL was not distributed, and the
name was later used for another (a not uncommon practice, although nowadays
there is a mechanism for officially transferring a name).

2.	The clone distributed by Austin was actually the same cultivar, with a
corrected pedigree (a strong possibility, considering the number of
discrepancies in the book). 

Bill continued:

:  As I grew it some 25-30 years ago, it looked like a typical TB
:  with rather small blooms, blue standards and buff falls with a widely
:  spaced veining of maroon.  

The color and pattern sound like that of the one I acquired from Lloyd Austin in
the early sixties but  I'd describe the flower as larger and wider than the
typical TB of its era, smaller that more modern ones.

:  Aside from the unusual pattern, there was no
:  sign of aril blood; it grew and bloomed well with TB varieties. 

I. susiana was widely used in the early days, in part because of her reputation
as being among the most gardenable of the oncos.  One of the "old hybridizers'
tales" I heard when I started working with arilbreds was that her descendants
produced excellent plants but their flowers were often nondescript. 

Of course, I had to find out for myself.  I've made hundreds of crosses between
susiana-deriviatives, and have come to believe that the old-timers were right.
The percentage of selected seedlings from this line is far below average.

:   I seem
:  also to recall that it was the parent of an award-winner called (?) Blue
:  Butterfly.

STRIPED BUTTERFLY, a light blue self with darker violet-blue veining on the
falls, took the C.G. White Award in 1963. 

:  Butterfly Wings had the habit of transferring its unique pattern to its
:  seedlings, but in the color of the other parent.  There was a Lloyd Austin
:  intro called Red Butterfly,  two-tone red with the maroon veins on the
:  falls.

Yes.  And a CHARTREUSE BUTTERFLY (greenish-yellow with olive veining).  And a
SCARLET BUTTERFLY.  And probably some more I'll think of as soon as this is on
its way....   

But to wind up the fifty-year-saga I promised:

BUTTERFLY WINGS was one of the oncobreds that piqued my interest in the group,
and  one of my hybridizing goals has been to develop a modern equivalent of
Austin's "Butterfly Series".  The BUTTERFLY WINGS pattern is turning up from
time to time among my quarterbred seedlings, though none have the fertility of
the original.  Mine will not be a set of direct descendants like Austin's, but
rather a group of distant cousins that bear a strong family resemblance.  

Sharon McAllister (73372.1745@compuserve.com)
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