Re: AIS: Early Years and Current Assumptions
- Subject: Re: AIS: Early Years and Current Assumptions
- From: H*@aol.com
- Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 12:09:52 EST
From: HIPSource@aol.com
In a message dated 3/14/99 7:45:49 PM Eastern Standard Time,
wmoores@watervalley.net writes:
<< It is easy to see how the AIS became known as 'the Tall Bearded Iris
Society' long before those words (above) were written in 1998.>>
One hears that the TB is uniquely majestic when grown to perfection and it
best serves the AIS purpose of attracting the eye of the public when shown,
thereby drawing said public in and making them accessible to the educational
aims of AIS, one of which is to encourage apreciation of the whole shebang---
or should be. And all this is unquestionably true, for some of those TB show
stalks will surely stop traffic, although I have seen them eclipsed when Iris
laevigata albopururea 'Colchesterensis' was in the room.
And there is the oft-encountered thought that of all the garden irises the
hybrid pogons will grow in the widest range of climates and conditions, and
the greatest of these are the TBs. Compared to some other groups of irises
this is plausible. On a cultivar by cultivar basis however, it may or may not
be true.
And I have read that it is in the TB that the most notable effects of
hybridizing--commonly called progress-- which AIS wishes to encourage---are
most ostensible. Not to take anything away from the TBs, certainly, or from
those dedicated individuals who have devoted their lives to working with them,
but I'm wondering if this could still be said to be invariably true.
Or whether we even still think in such absolutes.
Stray thoughts on a snowy morning......
Anner Whitehead
HIPSource@aol.com
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