The American Iris Society
First awarded in 1927,
the Dykes Medal is the highest award of the AIS, awarded to no more than one
iris per year. Irises are eligible as a Dykes Medal candidate for three years
following the winning of a classification medal. Only AIS registered judges may
vote.
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| 'Bottle Rocket' -- image by Colleen Modra |
The American Iris
Society is pleased to announce the 2019 winner is Mike Sutton’s ‘Bottle Rocket'. While the iris was created in California, under the AIS rules this will become
the first Dykes Medal winner for Idaho.
The Dykes Medal is
named for William Rickatson Dykes, an English botanist, horticulturist,
schoolmaster, plant breeder, author, and the foremost authority on irises at
the turn of the Twenty Century. He became the world's leading authority on iris.
His insatiable curiosity led him to obtain a wide knowledge of many other
plants, but his chief interest was in the lily, iris, and amaryllis natural
orders. He also did much work with tulips, and his knowledge of them was
comparable to his knowledge of iris. W.R. Dykes was also a prolific author. In
1909 he began to plan and work on his monograph, The Genus Iris. He
worked on this project for 5 years.
On December 1, 1925, W.R. Dykes died as a
result of a motor accident. His work had only begun, for he was on the
threshold of greater achievements as demonstrated by his glorious yellow
seedling which was named for him. His death was a shock and a Ioss to the
entire world of gardeners. At a meeting of the British Iris Society held on
June 16, 1926 it was resolved to award a medal to the hybridizer of the
outstanding iris variety of each year in memory of Mr. Dykes and thus the Dykes
Medal was created. It has become the most highly coveted, highly prized iris
award dreamed of by all iris hybridizers. This is the highest iris award
available and its name, the Dykes Medal, keeps his name alive and warm in all
our hearts.
The World of Irises blog will be posting once a day all of the medal winners. The entire list of winners can be found at the AIS website, the AIS Encyclopedia and later in the AIS Bulletin, IRISES.
