TB: unknown irises

Learning to recognize iris cultivars from their looks is really hard to do.
 What I have learned from the iris shows and looking in gardens and asking
lots of questions is that iris come in what are known as 'color classes',
 which I have never seen defined, but seems to mean a group of irises that
are pretty much impossible to tell apart unless you are an expert.  

For our show last week, I put together a group of 4 iris staks in the 'red'
color class, two of which were older unknowns, and two more recent knowns
(RUBISTAR and PLAY WITH FIRE).  I wanted to show everyone how the form has
changed over the years and also how superficially alike they look.  PLAY WITH
FIRE has a lot of ruffles, 3 of these irises had gold beards, 2 were very
tailored, two had darker, more noticeable veins, one had narrow hafts, But
all of these irises were EXACTLY the same color.  Geraldine Couturier is a
daylily judge and immediately noticed some differences in haft markings and
color that were so insignificant, I would never have noticed - I knew all 4
were different (and have different growth and bloom habits) but these two
looked identical to me.

Soo, the best I would hope for in identifying irises from pictures is to put
them in a color class with several widely grown examples.

Having said all that, in my fairly limeted experience, a few irises are
unique - LACED COTTON and DUSKY CHALLENGER are two I think of immediately,
but I wouldn't begin to try to identify DUSKY CHALLENGER from a picture.  I
have seen lots of photos of it, and they all look a different form and also
look like your basic dark purple iris.  But it has a unique 'sheen' and
'presence'.

So, it's not hopeless, it's just really difficult.

Now for my question - what is a color class?  In general usage, does it
include haft and beards or just standards and falls?  Are pink, orange,
pinkorange, apricot, peach all separate color classes?

Linda Mann lmann76543@aol.com east Tennessee USA
heat wave!  lows near 60 last night.  Yo yo.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index