The American Iris Society Announces the 2024 Randolph Perry Medal Winner

  'VIOLET SWALLOWS'

The Randolph-Perry Medal is restricted to interspecies irises (SPEC-X). It is named in honor of Dr. L. F. Randolph (1894-1980) and Amos Perry (1871-1953).

Dr. L. F. Randolph, or "Fitz" as he was affectionately called by his many friends and associates, was chairman of the AIS Scientific Committee from 1945 to 1956. The work he and his students Jyotirmay Mitra and Katherine Heinig did on iris chromosomes produced many published monographs and provide the basis of our scientific understanding of the genus. He conducted a number of extensive iris species collection expeditions and brought back new species and many new forms of other iris species, especially of I. pumila.

Amos Perry was born into a family of nurserymen. Perry was one of the first hybridizers to use the tetraploid irises 'Amas,' I trojana, I. mesopotamica and I. cypriana. He introduced scores of new bearded cultivars, but he was more interested in Siberian irises and iris species. He probably created more new hybrid interspecies irises than any other iris breeder. His new hybrid irises often had names that indicated their species parentage, such as 'Chrysogana' (I. chrysographes x I. bulleyana); 'Tebract' (I. tenax x I. bracteata); 'Longsib' (I. longipetala x I. siberica); and 'Chrysowigi' (I. chrysographes x I. hartwegii).

Previous awards winners can be found at https://wiki.irises.org/Main/InfoAwards.

Inter-species hybrid iris 'Violet Swallows'
photo by Mike Unser

'Violet Swallows' (Chad Harris, R. 2015) Seedling# 08SPCXL2. SPEC-X, 60" (152 cm), Late bloom. Standards white, small; style arms pale yellow (RHS 4D); falls pastel violet (85A), signal bright yellow (6A) surrounded by strong dark violet (86A) eyelash markings. 'Gubijin' X seedling# 97JD7: (Coble seedling# J90G: (seedling# J88A: (seedling# J86N: (seedling# J84J-7: ('Kyokko' x unknown) x seedling# J83A-6: ('Kyokko' x 'Rose Prelude')) x seedling# J84J) x seedling# J86DD: (seedling# J84J x seedling# J83A-6)) x 'Hime Kagami'). Introduced in 2016 by Mt Pleasant Iris Farm.

The World of Irises blog will be posting classification medal winners as soon as the hybridizers are notified. The entire list of winners, including Award of Merit and Honorable Mention, will be published on the AIS website, the AIS Encyclopedia, and later in the AIS Bulletin, IRISES.