Re: BULB: Bulbous Iris Fanciers?

In a message dated 5/10/2006 10:53:25 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
hensler@povn.com writes:

<< The most recent ones came from Brent & Becky's Bulbs.  These will bloom 
this year for the first time and I'm hoping for a wider  palette.>>


Should  be the best the market can offer, whatever that may be at this time. 
The  Heaths are good.  

<<There are 2 schools of thought on the "flecked" blooms... One  is that
they're caused by virus and the other is that the pigment is more  sensitive
to weather fluctuations. After raising a number of irises which  show this
type of streaking in the blooms (most notably, Arils and ABs) I  lean toward
weather as the cause.>>
 
In the English irises the phenomenon has been known at least since  the 
*Paradisi in Sole*, of 1629. Parkinson, gardening in  London, admired the effect. 
 
English Irises, so called, are not native to England. They entered the  Dutch 
bulb trade via England, and so were called, but they are Iberian in  
origin....but I guess everyone already knew that....just mentioned it in  passing.
 
<<If I should be lucky enough to find some of these blooms in this  new batch,
I'll pot some up for the greenhouse and find out for certain.  :-)>>
 
Well, I think that would be a useful sort of test, and interesting data  
could result, but do you think it would prove anything conclusively?  Possibly 
flecking is caused by several things in combination, or possibly  it is the 
result of any one of several sorts of stresses, or  possibly....well, I am neither 
learned nor sophisticated in these  matters, but it seems to me that just 
because a similar effect manifests  in several sorts of irises it does not follow 
that it results from the same  causative agent in all of them, nor the same in 
any one of them in all  circumstances.  
 
But I'd be very interested in hearing what you discover. 
 
And thanks for the note about how you grow them. 
 
Cordially,
 
Anner Whitehead
Richmond VA USA

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