Re: [ CULT: Irises Changing Color]

From: Ed Hydrick <eshjr52@netscape.net>

hipsource@aol.com wrote:

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Hello, Ed.

Welcome to the list.

As you will have guessed the question you have posed is one that we have 
heard before, and one that has been discussed at some length on the list. We 
really don't know what to make of reports of irises changing color. There are

clear genetic limits as to how much of this can really be happening without 
the influence of outside agencies. The natural and spontaneous appearance of 
one differently colored flower or stem in a clump is so rare that the 
statistical probablility of an entire clump changing spontaneously is 
infinitly small. 

Normally in such a situation I'd refer you to the Archives of the list to do 
a little private reading but I did a dry run on the subject myself and the 
material is pretty well scattered around so I retrieved an answer I wrote the

last time the question arose. If you would like to do more reading check the 
archives for the last week in February of 1999. Here is what I wrote.

"This unlikely phenomenon has been reported before and in the past we have
discussed it at length on this list. We have come up with only one possible
scenario that explains it plausibly at this time. Mike Sutton reported that
herbicide damage can alter the color of bearded irises so that they bloom
white the first season after the damage, but that this abates later. The
typical report involvers purple irises turning white although I read of one
woman who reported them all turning yellow. As I recall some other
explanations that have been offerred in the past are 1) more vigorous white
irises overrunning less vigorous purples 2) all purples in a planting not
blooming one year while the whites did bloom 3) Irises dug and only the
biggest rhizomes reset--and the white cultivar made bigger rhizomes so only
white were reset 4) problems with soil elements resulting in failure to
develop color adequately in the purples. Now, a point I made last time this
question arose was that if only the color of the iris has changed then any
other differences--form, height, foliage color, ruffling--should be unchanged
so that it should still be possible to distinguish between different irises
in
the planting. I observe further that we have not heard whether these new
white
irises look normal in other respects.

The consensus is that chemical factors or damage may possibly affect color in
some way. We think that if the phenomenon was something that the irises were
prone to do it would have been reported in some prominent irisarian's garden
sometime in the last seventy-five years."

So you see, if we hear this, we are inclined to be skeptical. We haave only 
heard about mass unexplained color changes from those who are not involved 
with iris societies. 

What you can do for us is to keep a record of what happens in that bed of 
irises in the future. If it is chemical damage, that should pass off. If you 
moved only whites, then they should stay white. If you moved a lot and only 
the whites bloomed, then some other colors should bloom later. If the soil is

the problem then you should get lighter shades of the original colors. And if

something odd is going on, then your white irises should show a variety of 
flower forms, as did the originals. Please keep some records and take some 
photos this year. We'd be interested to know what happens.

Anner Whitehead
HIPSource@aol.com

  First let me thank you very much for the very infomative and interesting
response. It has been pointed out to me that maybe I should have given a
little more information, so here goes. We live on the coast of North Carolina,
USA. We moved into our new home about two years ago. The house that we lived
in before had established flower beds and a very loamy soil that had been
built up over the years. We had two different purple, a yellow and white
irises all in the same bed. When I dug them up to move them to our new place I
failed to label them. The soil here at our new home is very sandy [reclaimed
pine forest]. We added mulch and fertilizer when we planted all of our
flowers. Shortly after planting we were hit with three hurricanes in a row.
none of the irises bloomed last year due to late planting and bad weather.
This year has been unseasonably warm and the flowers have bloomed early. All
of the irises that have bloomed so far have been white. About 2/3s of the ones
we planted have bloomed [25-30]out of 45. This is way out of proportion to
what we had before. I will continue to watch and see if the rest of them also
bloom white and will report the results to you when they bloom. Again thanks
for the information. Yours, Ed Hydrick

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