Re: colour change
- To: <i*@onelist.com>
- Subject: Re: colour change
- From: "* a* C* W* <c*@digitalpla.net>
- Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 10:42:05 -0600
From: "Jeff and Carolyn Walters" <cwalters@digitalpla.net>
From: heather & bernard pryor <irishaven@pip.com.au>
Well, dear friends, can you advise me, please? Do ye olde forms of white
TBs change colour or am I truly correct in stating that it is not
genetically possible? Now I need this to be answered relatively soon - you
see, we have another stall coming up in about 2 weeks and I'm terrified
that another lady is going to come up to me in front of the only customers
I've attracted all day just so she can scream:
"My iris change colour...."
Bernard,
Gerry Snyder and Anner Whitehead have already offered some pertinent
responses to your plea, but allow me to propose the following hypothesis
and see if it appears plausible.
At some time a gardener established a mixed planting of iris, including a
purple and a white variety. This planting was left undisturbed for far too
long and became neglected and overgrown. Iris being the creatures that they
are, the separate clumps of the two varieties proliferated and
interpenetrated one another so it became impossible to tell where one began
and the other ended. Growing in place for such a long time the irises
became overcrowded and the soil somewhat depleted. Under these less than
ideal conditions, the purple variety was still able to bloom, but the white
one only survived vegetatively. Someone (such as your ladies) comes along
and sees the purple iris in bloom and begs a start. The purple variety,
nearly exhausting itself by blooming under unfavorable conditions, is only
capable of producing puny looking increases and rhizomes. The white
variety, which has not been expending its energy on bloom, has been making
somewhat more robust looking increase and rhizomes. The person seeking a
start for themselves from this apparently pure stand of purple iris
naturally takes the most vigorous looking rhizomes he/she can find, and
therefore inadvertently selects the ones produced by the non-blooming white
variety. Replanted in fresh ground the white variety blooms in its natural
color, and the astounded and disappointed gardener carries tales of the
duplicitous behavior of the unreliable and fickle genus Iris far and wide!
Jeff Walters in northern Utah (USDA Zone 4, Sunset Zone 2)
cwalters@digitalpla.net
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