RE: HYB: traits - short vs stunted

Linda and others interested:

On the inheritance of stalk height I remember vividly the contrasts in a
sequence of generations of pinks.  Mel Suiter gave me a seedling of hers from
Peggy X Pink Enchantment.  I haven't looked up the registered height of those
two, but neither was particularly short.  The Suiter seedling was on the order
of 34-36 inches.

I crossed this seedling with Fleeta of Orville Fay's.  The cross included
several pods and quite a number of seedlings resulted.  I named and registered
two--SANCTUS and JOYFUL NOISE.  Most of the seedlings were in the height range
of the parents, but both the named ones tended to be shorter.  Sanctus was 34"
at best and often quite a bit shorter than that.  Joyful Noise was an
intensely deep pink BB with small flowers in proportion to the border height.
Tell said it was the deepest pink he had ever seen as grown in his gardens in
Orem, Utah.  Sanctus was a delicate lighter pink, but both had astounding bud
counts and branching.  I saw stalks with fourteen or more buds frequently with
each.

Sanctus crossed with Rippling Waters produced uniformly tall seedlings--on the
order of 40 inches.  The one registered as PORCELAIN ROSE was a lovely, large,
beautifully finished pink for me in Idaho.  I failed to test it away from home
before its introduction--an error I will *never* make that mistake again.
Tell introduced it, and I saw it growing at Gordon Plough's Eden Road Iris
Garden in Wenatchee the following year.  My face turned red.  It was tall, all
right.  But the flowers were tiny!  I got a friendly note from Keith Keppel
that same spring--Porcelain Rose was growing in his garden (I think he was
still in Stockton).  His only comment: "The flowers were a little small for
the height."  Porcelain Rose disappeared from the market rather abruptly.

I did not use Joyful Noise in breeding.  It had problems with the matter of
form which I did not want to pursue.

The height sequences were an education.  Tall or moderately tall producing a
range of heights, then one of the shorter ones (as pod parent) producing a
flock of decidedly tall ones.  One of the best sibs of Porcelain Rose, by the
way, had only four to five blooms per stalk.  Peculiar, and something I would
like to understand better in terms of the genetics.  Both parents had ample
bud counts.  Why this one had so few is a puzzle.

Neil Mogensen  z 7  in the mountains of western NC

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index