Re: OT-HUMOR: LEAF HOLES

rimat wrote:
> 
> J. Michael, Celia or Ben Storey wrote:
> >
> > >a huge grouping of iris clumps with tall leaves, dark green with purple
> > >spreading up them from the top of the rz about 2" high, healthy rzs
> > >properly above the ground, and big round holes in the centers of the
> > >leaves with no edge chewing.
> >
> > ;-> ;-> ;-> ;-> ;-> ;->
> >
> > Congratulations, Rima! You have stumbled across the very rare species iris,
> > I. fromage suisse. Don't bother looking it up in your Dykes. It is so rare,
> > even that great catolog keeper never stumbled across a sprig.
> >
> > The purple tint you note spreading up the base of the fan is characteristic
> > of I. fromage suisse but is not in itself the telling characteristic. Many
> > irises have purple based foliage, because, once upon a time, irises were
> > completely purple, head to toe. Hard to believe, isn't it? Many people have
> > never heard of this but, as you know, general ignorance of any given report
> > has no bearing upon its veracity. ;->
> > The flowers were purple, the fans were purple, and the rhizomes were
> > totally purple. Purple, purple, purple. The only parts of the common iris
> > in those antique days that was not purple were haft markings, of course.
> >
> > Many people were disatisfied with these purple irises. So hybridizers were
> > called in. This was in July of 1257, when the middle class was spreading
> > across Europe like fire ants, running up credit debt everywhere it went.
> > Hybridizers had developed a good reputation from their early success in
> > changing the shapes of pea pods to match the fanciful designs included on
> > wall papers, and so all of middle class Europe expected great things of the
> > Iris Remediation Project, as it was dubbed by troubadours. They were not
> > disappointed.
> > Hybridizers built a base camp at Orleans and set about broadening the
> > limited coloration available on the flowers, a goal that proved amazingly
> > easy to accomplish, because as we know today, purple is made of molecules,
> > some of which are also genes. It doesn't take a geneticist to know what
> > wonders can be accomplished by mixing and matching genes! Within no time
> > there were so many different irises on the market, people started
> > complaining that there were too many to choose from and they couldn't make
> > up their minds.
> >
> > Many of the new colors, especially the dominant oranges, clashed with the
> > old purple foliage, which was now despised as "natural-looking." So the
> > ever-resourceful hybridizers undertook the difficult and often tedious
> > process of greening the fans. Early attempts failed, including the (to us)
> > laughable method of installing an iris among other plants with strictly
> > green foliage, so it would "get the idea." The most effective method proved
> > to be constant stroking. The hybridizer slowly stroked the purple tint
> > farther and farther down toward the rhizome, or "toe" as it is known to the
> > scientific community. By this time the average hybridizer was wealthy
> > enough to hire assistants to stroke the plants for him round the clock, in
> > shifts. After several dozen generations of constant stroking, irises gave
> > up trying to push purple dye up to the tips of their fans.
> > Later the great scientist Hedy Lamaar developed an innovative technique
> > using rubber bands to cut off the flow of purple tint to the fan tips,
> > which led to mass layoffs of hybridizer assistants and denied the iris
> > plants the daily stroking they had learned to enjoy. Even today, decades
> > after the loss of their fan-stroking assistants, irises cause the tips of
> > their fans to turn brown and die back in commemoration of their loss.
> > Purple based foliage, or PBF, remains in some cultivars, evidence of the
> > stubborn resistence of the original purple irises.
> >
> > It was stated above that the presence of PBF in itself is not enough to
> > identify a plant definitively as I. fromage suisse. The holes on the fans
> > must also be present with the PBF. Green-based foliage plants with holes in
> > the middles are *not* I. fromage suisse.
> >
> > Even a passing acquaintance with the great variety of iris species can
> > expand one's horizons in pleasant ways. Another rare and fragrant species
> > is the short-lived I. moribundissima, or the famous "self-composting iris."
> > I have been fortunate to observe a remarkable clump of this in my own yard
> > and can tell you I will never forget the experience.
> >
> > As you can tell from the above perhaps overlong explanation, there are many
> > different levels of irising expertise represented on Iris-L. Appreciation
> > of some of these levels requires more patience than others. I thank you for
> > exercising your patience here at mine.
> >
> > Happy speciesing! ;->
> >
> > celia
> > storey@aristotle.net
> > Little Rock, Arkansas USDA Zone 7b
> 
> Hi Celia--
> I'm not cutting any of this message because it's too valuable! I have a
> bit of additional erudition concerning this rare finding.
> 
> First, I. fromage suisse originated with the holes. As the leaves grew
> around it they turned purple in sheer frustration at not being green as
> ordered by their creator, Kermit Le Grenouille, who threw it on the dung
> heap (no compost in 1257). It scattered from there and came down
> successfully (being strong-willed enough to escape the purple-iris
> haters and the black death) to the hybridizers in Orleans.
> 
> As for stroking, well, we all know about that!  All one has to do these
> days is say "boo hoo" or even "wa-a-a-ah" and somebody somewhere will
> stroke.  Being silent, irises had a tougher time.  (If any of those laid
> off hybridizer assistants need a job, give them my number.)
> 
> You are probably right, but I thought the scientist was W.C. Fields
> who, being color-blind and mistaking purple for black, gave it the name
> "MY LITTLE CHICKADEE".
> 
> I really think that this rare find of mine (I'll take the photos)
> coupled with your scholarly essay would make an excellent submission to
> the Bulletin.
> Rima  terra@catskill.net
> upstate NY  zone 4
> 
> Now that i've stopped laughing (sort of), I'll hit the send button and
> consign this whole thing to my save list and iris-L so I can read your
> brilliant explanation again whenever I feel like saying "w-a-a-a-h".


And we all know the name of these plants as they became purple-green:
BARNEY!
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index