Re: SPEC-Salt Tolerance of Easten Bearded Species

If pseudacorus is surviving, it would be worth trying the others.  We have
versicolor here but it is not common; I've never seen virginica in the wild
in our region (SCentral Piedmont).

According to Brian Mathew and others, some of the spuria species are salt
and wet-tolerant enough to be know as "salt-marsh irises."  Perhaps these
would be suitable.  I find it curious that some spurias evidently do live
in wet conditions in their native habitats but we consider them as mostly
dry-land forms.  Perhaps by breeding modern hybrids with the wet-tolerant
species, one could get spurias that do better in wet summers.

That said, I should point out that I have several clumps of seed-grown
spuria hybrids now blooming beautifully.  They've been in the same
well-drained and partly shady spot for about eight years now.  They were
grown from SIGNA seed and the five seedlings I got were a good
representative of the range of colors in spurias: a violet, an intense
yellow, a yellow amoena, a bright brown, and one that STILL hasn't bloomed.
I hope next year to see a second generation from these; they are from the
seeds I wrote of earlier that took 18 months to germinate.

The TBs are about over and done with here.  Looks like sparse bloom on my
JIs this year.  I guess they are getting a bit too crowded in the borders
by the alstroemerias and daylilies.  One nice seedling which grows out in
the open has many buds coming, however.

I guess I've gotten somewhat off topic--sorry.

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@tiger.hsc.edu>
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