German Iris
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: German Iris
  • From: &* S* <s*@molalla.net>
  • Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 08:22:00 -0800
This is in addition to Bob Pries' explanation on the origin of "German Iris".
This was part of an article published in December 1927.

Dave Silverberg

                                                                             
       Irises of Old

Iris Society (England) Bulletin 5:42

W. J. Caparne

As one looks back on the work of the old gardeners of the seventeenth,
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and remembers that many of the
plants we have to-day are undoubtedly due to their forgotten labours, it is
almost a personal interest in them one acquires in continuing their work. They
worked and wrote of their workings under Ducal or Royal patronage pretty much
as did Art in Italy. There was no common occupation as in the now popular art
of gardening, and their skill and knowledge as expressed in their writings
shew them to have been men of exceptional ability with exceptional material to
handle, much of it being private, personal and particular collection of their
respective patrons, and often for them, with all to learn as to how to deal
with it.

The assurance of their successes in this matter are enough guarantee for our
attention.

IRISES.--In these they were quite great. Listen to a short extract of "John
Dicks" gardener to "His Grace the Duke of Kingston," published in his
dictionary, 1769. (Our botanical terms had not then come into use and he has
to describe as best he can) To take his list of Bearded Iris, he begins
with:--

"The Austrian" (we here see how "German" Iris was smuggled in, reminding us of
"German Ocean" memories and some others).

The North Sea was and is Germany's only access to the atlantic ocean and over
time it became known colloquially  as the "German Ocean".

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