HIST: Amoena, amoena (Was iris info)

Celia Story wrote:
> A full clump will
> pick right up and get growing, but an offset or paired offsets will linger
> and mope and poke only the thumbnail tippy tips of fans out of the growth
> point for months on end. Is this common? 

It's been my impression that this is the way (some?, most?) older, more
durable irises behave.  I suspect they might get part of their
durability from a deep, well-developed root system but maybe don't have
very fast growing roots.  Just a hypothesis - I never dug and compared. 
But I think older irises may have been selected more for their ability
to sit and make a nice clump year after year, while newer ones are
selected for the speed they can multiply and be marketable (among other
things).  

>From some earlier discussion on the list, I got the idea that a lot of
the earlier hybridizing in this country was done in the eastern states
(Tennessee for instance) where the kind of rapid growth and production
they get on the west coast isn't possible anyway, so there would have
been less selection for those traits.  Another untested hypothesis.

Linda Mann east Tennessee USA
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