REF: American Iris?

In a message dated 6/16/00 9:56:24 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
babsdewit@yahoo.com writes:

<< Can anyone tell me what American Irises are? ....To me they look like TB. 
Are they? >>

Hi, Babs, and welcome.

Here is the situation as I grasp it. 

If what you are seeing is a bearded iris, which means it has a furry 
caterpiller-like structure on the center top of the lower petals leading down 
into the heart of the flower, it is not a North American native Iris species 
or any hybrid derived therefrom since there are no native North American Iris 
species which are bearded irises. 

The only native North American iris which resembles a bearded iris, but is 
not is tiny Iris verna. I'm not aware of it being a cash crop on the 
continent and I much doubt it is. In any case you would be hardpressed to 
mistake it for a TB even in a picture. 

So, to state the obvious, if you are indeed seeing pictures of bearded irises 
then they could well be TBs or something smaller, but the descriptive term 
'American' is not being used in any precise way familiar to irisarians here.

The purveyors may be using it simply to refer to the place of origin either 
of the cultivar or the plant itself, as we in North America use the terms 
Dutch tulips and English tulips, or French wine, or Greek olives, or Belgian 
chocolates, or English lavender....some of which I have in bloom right now, 
right here, far from Albion.

Anner, in Virginia, USA
ChatOWhitehall@aol.com

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