Re: Zurbrigg's Rebloomers
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: Re: Zurbrigg's Rebloomers
- From: "* G* C* <j*@erols.com>
- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:15:08 -0700 (MST)
william b. cook wrote:
>
> P Isn't Iris albicans extremely rare? Does anyone on the List
> actually grow it? If so, I am interested in hearing about this plant.
>
> Mark A. Cook
Mark -- Iris albicans is the triangular-shaped white bearded iris that
Turkish soldiers carried to plant on the graves of their comrades. Mike
and Anne Lowe have one or more slides of it in their Historic Iris
Preservation Society collection. Molly Price, in THE IRIS BOOK, said
that "wandering Mohammedans carried the white-flowered iris 'Albicans'
everywhere, and planted it on their soldiers' graves". I have seen a
Turkish cemetery with each grave covered with blooming irises (though
not only white), so credit the story. This, to me, would mean that Iris
albicans was spread up through the Balkans as far as the gates of Vienna
during the Turkish campaigns into Europe, which ended in the 1600s with
the defeat of the Turks at Vienna by Pan Jan Sobieski of Poland.
Griff Crump, along the tidal Potomac near Mount Vernon, VA
jgcrump@erols.com
