HYB: Parent not registered but circulating under name (was: Re: searching in the Irisregister )

There is a convention in use about registering a seedling with a named but
unregistered cv in the pedigree.  The name is given but put in quote
marks--and any specific information (such as hybridizer of the cv or terse
description) that would be useful is included.

The major varieties that have unknown parentages usually have good reason for
the lack of knowledge.  Sometimes chickens scratch in the seedbed or squirrels
pull out the labels or some such.  Even one might find a few seeds on the
floor after the counting is done.  Do you throw these all out because the
parentage is unknown?  I sure don't, and neither do some of the major
hybridizers.  With DUSKY CHALLENGER, for instance, the seedling designation
was "1983-AA" which is not a typical Schreiner seedling number, suggesting
some such problem occured during its passage from being a developing seed in a
tagged cross to the time it bloomed.  With Dusky Challenger, though, a study
of Schreiner purple/black bloodlines suggests it is from the same kind of
breeding the ones with known pedigrees have in their ancestry.

There's another, older, Dykes Medal winner, DEBBY RAIRDON, from an otherwise
unknown hybridizer.  There isn't a clue as to its ancestry, unless one wants
to do some wide speculation--"white crossed with pink carrier" or some such.

In neither case was an unregistered, named clone involved.

In the Russian pedigrees, however, one notes a name appearing repeatedly of a
cultivar named but never registered.  Sometimes the parentage of the
unregistered but named cv is given, sometimes not.  I suspect the Registrar
and his Russian co-operating registrar have tried diligently to get this
corrected.  It probably will stand until the last trump.  At least, in this
case, the family tree is unbroken.  That is information is useful, but it
would be even more useful to have a good description of the cv were one to
obtain and use the Russian-originated progeny in crosses.  I'm confident that
will eventually happen.

In the ancestry of some of Marx's JI's I believe some named but not registered
cvs appear.  Anyone willing to live with these ambiguities and frustrations
has more patience than most of us.

Keith Keppel has gone far beyond the call of duty trying to trace down and get
into the official records significant varieties that have this problem.  One
example is SUN LAKES registered by Melvina Suiter in 1951, then introduced in
1953.  Somehow the record got mislaid and does not appear in the Check List
until the 1979 edition.  Sun Lakes is one cv of some importance as it is in
the ancestry of at least two Dykes Medal winners, one of which is VICTORIA
FALLS.  Using the CL's alone you won't find it there, however, as "Scharff
seedling" is not identified as to ancestry.  That information does appear in
Mike Lowe's pedigree charts accessed through the HIPS web site.  I suspect it
was Keith's patience and persistence that got Sun Lakes into the records, and
probably also provided Mike Lowe with the Scharff seedling data, as the
seedling number was known.

Keith was still trying to run down some Suiter information as recently as
three or four years ago.  Since I knew Mel and had looked to her as one of my
mentors Keith sent me a photocopy of the 1953 Suiter sales list, knowing I
would be especially interested.  Several cultivars appear that do not appear
in the published records, even though Mel states that all offered for sale
were registered with the AIS.  The list of those without CL record included
some I had known first hand.  None of them do appear in subsequent pedigrees,
and since no one can speak for the late Ms. Suiter at this point the matter is
dropped, I believe.  I find that sad.  Mel's papers probably had included the
original registration certificates, but those records went into oblivion years
ago.

Neil Mogensen  z 7 in western NC

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