The American Iris Society
Announces
The Payne Medal 2018
'Kimono Silk'
'Kimono Silk'--image by Brock Heilman
'Kimono Silk' (Bob Bauer and John Coble, R. 2008). Falls
white, central dusting of bright blue between the white rays, yellow signal;
style arms pure white, crests same. 'Lake Effect' X 'Frosted Pyramid'.
This medal is restricted to Japanese irises (JI). It is
named in honor of W. Arlie Payne (1881-1971). W. Arlie Payne was at first interested in peonies, but in the late 1920's, he "discovered"
Japanese irises. He started hybridizing Japanese in irises in 1932. Over the
next three and a half decades, he raised many thousands of seedlings. One of
the most exceptional aspects of his breeding program was that it was developed
in the early years using only six cultivars of the Edo type. Payne took line
breeding to a new level of intensity. The American Iris Society awarded Arlie
Payne its coveted Hybridizers Medal in 1964. When he died at the age of 90, in
1971, he was universally revered as the world's premier breeder of Japanese
irises
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
http://irises.org/About_Irises/Awards_Surveys/AIS_Awards.html, the AIS
Encyclopedia and later in the AIS Bulletin, IRISES. Pictures can be found at
http://wiki.irises.org/Main/InfoAwards2018.
