Re: HYB: Umbrata trait and origin

Linda Mann asks about yellow and pink amoena patterns in reference to
"Umbrata."  Since we're still in the stage of working out a clear definition
for the term, the question is a good one.

If we're going to have a clear definition of "Umbrata" that might have genetic
utility, it can only refer to one thing.

"Amoena"  is now used to refer to any iris that has white (more or less)
standards and any color falls from any pigment origin, whether dominant or
recessive all or in part. Prior to the advent of PINNACLE and WHOLE CLOTH this
was not the case.  The term applied only to irises like MRS. ANDRIST and
WABASH.

The fall overlay pattern we have been talking about as "Umbrata" is -- or
seems to me to be -- a unitary thing.

If we are talking from a genetic basis, there is no reason why pink or yellow
amoenas (same genetics for the amoena, one has tttt, the other does not)
cannot also have the genetic basis for the Umbrata overlay.  There are several
of Barry Blyth's bicolors which are precisely that.  The "amoena" from yellow
and pink pigments are not the same thing as those that stem from blue or
violet pigments, however.

The Umbrata applies, as I have been understanding it, only to a range of
related anthocyanin-pigment patterns which may come both from *variegata* and
some Asiatic tetraploids, but not to carotinoid pigments which come from
*variegata* alone as far as we know.  The *patterns* in which yellow or pink
pigments fall, however, may come from a variety of sources.  The only one
besides yellow self patterns known to occur in *variegata* and its early
hybrids is the "Joyce Terry" pattern of yellow standards (at least on the
outside), white falls bordered yellow.  Often the insides of the standards are
also white with a yellow border, if one looks closely.

Yellow (or pink) amoena may be developments from those early varieties which
had strong blushes of yellow on the haft.  There were some early yellows, such
as HAPPY DAYS that did have a bitone effect, and I believe some of them are in
the PINNACLE pedigree.  PINNACLE and SUNSET SNOWS may have given classic
amoenas of the WABASH type, a comment I base on something I believe Barry
Blyth said in his *Tall Talk* article.  My memory is imperfect, but somehow
this notion stuck.

The range of variation of this closely related series may include butterfly
wing patterns, solid fall and butterfly-veined hafts, solid fall AND solid
hafts, and may even include the recently appearing non-plicata pattern in
QUANDARY, EXPOSE and other Ghio 88-180P offspring and grandchildren.
Considering the range the plicata locus spans, it would not be surprising if
this set of patterns also had a series of closely related alleles--all
dependent on one or two enzymes with a series of closely related but slightly
different forms.

Since the 88-180P "SNOWED IN" family all stem from NOTORIOUS and perhaps
CINNAMON SUN it may be that a "fall overlay" series analogous to the plicata
series may exist.  NOTORIOUS comes close to being a butterfly-wing vein
pattern.  A few test crosses of "Umbrata" candidates with 88-180P might be
interesting to test this possibility or to see what progeny look like..

Referring back to another matter, the question of whether Umbrata always
has--or only usually has--a border around the fall:

You mention DOMINION.  One of the seedlings of DOMINION is BRUNO,
incidentally, and it does not have the fall band as I recall.  Neither does
SPUN GOLD, which may have a very pale Umbrata overlay on the fall.  Its velvet
texture and breeding behavior suggest this.  I had a seedling with velvet
brown falls, yellow standards from its pollen on one of Dr. Kleinsorge's brown
selfs.  The bicolor effect had to have come from SPUN GOLD.

BRUNO, if I remember correctly, is solid colored to the edge of the fall.  The
other parent than DOMINION is either unrecorded or unknown, so who knows what
it may have looked like?

Neil Mogensen  z 7 western NC mountains

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