Re: Re; iris heights

Gunnar writes

:I am so confused about this that the Irises are diveded into classes regarding
:to their height.
:Is there somewhere stated under which 'normal' conditions it is to be
:grown then?
:Let me take an example: If I take an plant from the nordic sweden that never
:grow larger than 1 inch there, and plant it in the middle of sweden it grows to
:the height of 10 or 15 inch. And the opposite ofcourse.
:
:So when you say that IB is between 16-27 ins. and a TB is always 27 ins. or
:more: under what climatzone is that legal???

That's a *very* good observation. Yes, it is a problem. (As you can see from
some of the responses to this thread, many of us have gardens where the
irises grow to different height than the "official" measurement provided by
the hybridizer.)

But there are some things that keep the system working:

1. Within the US, there is not tremendous regional variation in the heights.
+/- 20% is probably the range.

2. Each median class has a "type" variety, which can be used for comparison
purposes. In practice, the hubridizer grows dozens and dozens of irises in
each class, so it is not usually difficult to see which group a new hybrid
falls into.

3. Many hybridizers send out their seedlings to friends or test gardens in
different regions, to confirm that it stays "in class" in different places.

4. Height is only one criteria in classifying irises. Bloom season, proportion,
stalk characteristics, etc., are also criteria.

I think the biggest problem area is the division between tall bearded and
border bearded. Since these irises come from the same gene pool and the
same crosses, sometimes the *only* basis on which the classification is
made is an inch or two of height difference. Median fanciers would like
to see BBs that are obviously diminutive in all their dimensions, not just
a TB that couldn't reach up that last inch. But in practice, it remains
a problem.

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Tom Tadfor Little         tlittle@lanl.gov  -or-  telp@Rt66.com
technical writer/editor   Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Telperion Productions     http://www.rt66.com/~telp/
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