HYB: umbratas, Dominion?

Although I never grew 'Dominion' itself, I have grown a number of descendants
of it.  The color of the various bitones and bicolors is on the surface of the
fall, not on both sides.  The only way a color is going to show both sides of
the fall equally is if the flower is a self, or a self-plus the I-sub-s which
does not affect the fall color significantly until in three to four dosage
levels.

To the best of my knowledge the I-sub-s first enters tall bearded irises with
three possible points of entry--Paul Cook's *reichenbachii* grown from seed
marked '"Iris mellita," the 'Melamoena' registration from a
*suaveolens/mellita* cross, the progeny from which may have been sterile, and
the Greelee 'Sharkskin' X *Iris balkana* seedling that appears in a number of
California pedigrees.

All of these possible entry points are long after the time of 'Dominion.'  In
addition there never has been a suggestion that 'Dominion' was a dominant
amoena, although the possible ancestors of hybrids carrying I-sub-s certainly
may have been in circulation or in gardens in England at the time of
'Dominion's' advent.

It occurs to me that an iris with a heavy Umbrata pattern will darkly shadow
the underside because of the translucency of the iris petal tissue.  In a
photograph the difference would be very difficult to determine, but if a fall
of a 'Dominion'-type flower is torn or broken, one has no difficulty at all
determining where the color is occuring.

Neil Mogensen   z  7  western NC mountains

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