Showing posts with label Williamson-White Medal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Williamson-White Medal. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

The American Iris Society Announces the 2023 Williamson-White Medal Winner

 'BLACK CHERRY SORBET'

The Williamson-White Medal is restricted to miniature tall bearded (MTB) irises. It is named in honor of E. B. Williamson (1877-1933), his daughter Mary Williamson (1909-1987) and Alice White (1886-1969). Although others had introduced irises that fit into the miniature tall bearded iris class before Williamson, he and his daughter were the first to breed them as cultivars in a distinctive class of irises. They were apparently byproducts of breeding for tall bearded irises. In the early 1950s, Alice White of Hemet, California began a crusade to gain recognition for the assets of these wonderful smaller irises. She organized table iris robins and wrote many articles for the AIS Bulletin and gardening magazines promoting their virtues.

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

Miniature tall bearded iris 'BLACK CHERRY SORBET'
photo by Heather Haley

'Black Cherry Sorbet' (Chad Harris, R. 2015) Seedling 08MTB2. MTB, 22" (56 cm). Early bloom. Standards black cherry-red (RHS 183A); style arms buckskin tan (164B); falls orchid (186C) ground heavily veined black cherry-red (187A); beards bright lemon yellow (13A); slight spicy fragrance. 'Redrock Princess' X 'Butterscotch Wine'. Introduced by Mount Pleasant Iris Farm in 2016.

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

Friday, August 19, 2022

The American Iris Society Announces the 2022 Williamson-White Medal Winner

'BREAKFAST IN BED'

The Williamson-White Medal is restricted to miniature tall bearded (MTB) irises. It is named in honor of E. B. Williamson (1877-1933), his daughter Mary Williamson (1909-1987) and Alice White (1886-1969). Although others had introduced irises that fit into the miniature tall bearded iris class before Williamson, he and his daughter were the first to breed them as cultivars in a distinctive class of irises. They were apparently byproducts of breeding for tall bearded irises. In the early 1950s, Alice White of Hemet, California began a crusade to gain recognition for the assets of these wonderful smaller irises. She organized table iris robins and wrote many articles for the AIS Bulletin and gardening magazines promoting their virtues.

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

'BREAKFAST IN BED'
photo by Mike Unser

'Breakfast in Bed' (Charles Bunnell, R. 2013) Seedling #K65B-10. MTB, 22-25 (56-63 cm). Late midseason bloom. Standards yellow (RHS 2B) blended with red-purple (71B), veined red-purple; style arms yellow; falls cream, red-purple blend towards middle end of falls, rims are bright yellow, heavily veined red-purple; beard hairs based yellow-orange, yellow tips. 'Yellow Flirt' X seedling #E24-2: ( 'Consummation' x 'Rosemary's Dream'). Introduced by Aitken's Salmon Creek Garden in 2014.

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

Friday, August 20, 2021

The American Iris Society Announces the 2021 Williamson-White Medal Winners

'MOOSE TRACKS' and 'HOOSIER BELLE'

The Williamson White Medal is restricted to miniature tall bearded (MTB) irises. It is named in honor of E. B. Williamson (1877-1933), his daughter Mary Williamson (1909-1987) and Alice White (1886-1969). Although others had introduced irises that fit into the miniature tall bearded iris class before Williamson, he and his daughter were the first to breed them as cultivars in a distinctive class of irises. They were apparently byproducts of breeding for tall bearded irises. In the early 1950's, Alice White of Hemet, California began a crusade to gain recognition of the assets of these wonderful smaller irises. She organized table iris robins and wrote many articles for the AIS Bulletin and gardening magazines promoting their virtues.


Editor’s Note: Due to the pandemic last year, the American Iris Society Board of Directors suspended garden awards. As a result, and for only this year, two medals will be award in this area. Previous awards winners can be found at https://wiki.irises.org/Main/InfoAwards.


 
 MOOSE TRACKS (Lynda Miller)

'Moose Tracks' (Lynda Miller, R. 2014) Seedling #2010E. MTB, 18"-20" (46-51 cm). Midseason to late bloom. Standards medium gold, veined smoky plum; style arms gold, smoky plum accents; falls black veined over white becoming solid maroon-black at bottom of petal; beards dark gold. Seedling #104A, unknown X 'Rayos Adentro'. Salmon Creek 2015. 

HOOSIER BELLE (Charles Bunnell)

'Hoosier Belle' (Charles Bunnell, R. 2011) Seedling #G30-5. MTB, 20-22 (5136 cm), Midseason bloom. Standards light lilac lavender, sometimes aging to near white; style arms very light lavender; falls dark violet, prominent white hafts extending midway, distinctive white rim; beards white; slight spicy fragrance. Seedling #D21-2: ('Oshel Blue' x 'Lucky Mistake') X unknown.

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 in the AIS website, the AIS Encyclopedia, and later in the AIS Bulletin, IRISES.

 

Monday, October 21, 2019

Iris in Indiana: E.B. and Mary Williamson

by Jean Richter

Edward Bruce Williamson was born in 1877 on Marion, Indiana. His father Lent A. Williamson and an uncle founded the Wells County Bank in Bluffton, Indiana in 1888, where his father was president until 1918. His mother was Dorothea Kellerman Williamson. Bruce, as he was known to family and friends, graduated from Ohio State University in 1897, and then worked as Assistant Curator of Insects (his academic specialty) at the Carnegie Museum. He also taught high school science, and published numerous scientific articles on dragonflies, upon which (in addition to damselflies) he was a world-class authority.

He married Anna Tribolet in 1902, and the following year began working in his father's bank, first as a cashier, and then succeeding his father as president in 1918. The Williamsons had three foster daughters, Dorothea, Jane, and Mary.

E.B. Williamson (as he was known professionally), started growing irises soon after he married and obtained his home and garden in Bluffton. He began corresponding with J.N. Gerard regarding hybridizing irises, who gave him the rather astonishing advice that so many people had been breeding tall bearded iris that their potential for improvement was probably exhausted! At Gerard's suggestion, Williamson began breeding aril irises, probably the most difficult type of iris to grow in Indiana. Despite the difficulty, he was able to produce successful crosses with Iris susiana and Iris korolkowii. After a number of years, Morrison abandoned his hybridizing program with arils and gave his entire collection to hybridizer B.Y. Morrison. Charles Gersdorff, for many years the American Iris Society registrar, was impressed with some of Williamson's korolkowii hybrids and introduced them. Unfortunately, none are known to be extant today.

Williamson had a very unorthodox hybridizing method, gathering pollen from multiple cultivars, mixing the pollen in small pillboxes, and then applying the pollen to the flowers of iris  he thought would be good parents. He was assisted in this by his daughters Mary and Jane, and he sometimes also hired local schoolchildren to assist if he had particularly large numbers of flowers to hybridize.

This method produced unique seedlings of bearded iris, but was not successful with beardless iris, as usually bees had pollinated the flowers before he could get to them. One instance in which he did not use mixed pollen in a cross was one between Louisiana iris species Iris fulva and what is now called Iris brevicaulis. The resulting variety 'Dorothea Williamson' (named after his mother) was one of the first Louisiana iris hybrids, and the first bred by an American. 'Dorothea Williamson' (or its close relations) now grows semi-wild in many areas of the U.S., including places where native Louisiana iris are not found (such as the eastern seaboard).

When E.B. Williamson began to sell iris in 1918, he established a nursery named Longfield Iris Farm (named after the name of his father's house in Bluffton). Two years later he entered into a partnership with hybridizer Paul Cook, who would later become one of the world's most distinguished hybridizers himself.

E.B. Williamson's fame as an iris hybridizer came not from aril or Louisiana iris, however, but from a tall bearded iris that radically changed course of iris development in the U.S. He made many crosses of the collected tall bearded iris 'Amas.' Of all these crosses only a few yielded pods, and only one contained a seed - the largest bearded iris seed he had ever seen. From this seed grew the plant he introduced as 'Lent A. Williamson' after his father in 1918. This iris was one of the first tetraploid iris (four sets of chromosones) produced in the U.S., and an important advancement (nearly all modern tall bearded iris are tetraploid). Many hybridizers used this iris to create their own tetraploid iris, leading to it being called the "great progenitor."

'Lent A. Williamson' (1918)
photo by Mary Hess

Williamson himself used 'Lent A. Williamson' to produce the important iris 'Dolly Madison,' which can be found in the background of a myriad of modern iris.

'Dolly Madison' (1927)
photo by Mary Hess

Below are some other excellent iris Williamson introduced during the 1920s.

'Cinnabar' (1928)
photo by Mary Hess

'Gay Hussar' (1925) originally listed as IB, now BB
photo by Mary Hess

'Rhea' (1928) pentaploid (5 sets of chromosones)!
photo by Mary Hess

While working at the bank and in his iris fields, Williamson continued to do research on dragonflies and damselflies. He named an astounding 14 new genera and 92 new dragonfly species. His contributions to entomology were recognized by having a new genus of dragonfly named Williamsonia in his honor. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1928, and his bank failed in early 1929 (just before the Great Crash). Since his university position required his presence in Michigan, his daughters Mary and Jane took over the operation of Longfield Iris Farm.

E.B. Williamson was elected to the AIS board of directors in 1926, and elected vice president in 1928, a position he held until his death in 1933 after a brief illness. Longfield Iris Farm continued to introduce iris after his death. One of the best of these later introductions is 'Amigo,' a handsome and vigorous iris.

'Amigo' (1933)
photo by Mary Hess

Mary Williamson was born in 1909, and died in Bluffton in 1987. In the course of managing Longfield Iris Farm after her father died, she named, registered, and introduced a fabulous white and purple iris that became a classic almost immediately: 'Wabash.' When it won the Dykes Medal in 1940 it was already one of the most popular iris in the U.S. and Canada, and is still a very popular iris today.

'Wabash' (1936)
photo by Mary Hess

The matter of the true originator of 'Wabash' (E.B. or Mary Williamson) had been a matter of some controversy over the years. However, when she wrote a history of Longfield Iris Farm, Mary named herself as its hybridizer, and when the British Iris Society awarded the Dykes Medal for 'Wabash,' it also identified her as the originator. Subsequent research has fairly unequivocally proved that Mary Williamson was the originator of 'Wabash,' and one the first women hybridizers to win the Dykes Medal.

Another of Mary's important achievements was the popularization of miniature tall bearded iris, or "table irises" as they were known at the time. While her father referred to these smaller, more delicate iris as "runts," Mary saw their potential. E.B. allowed only a few of these iris to be introduced during his lifetime, and Mary continued working with them and introduced a number of others in the 1930s and 1940s. Alice White was another major advocate of these iris, and led a campaign within the AIS to have them recognized as a distinct class. The exacting standards for this new class, now called miniature tall bearded iris, were written by White using measurements provided by Mary Williamson. The Williamson-White Medal is awarded by the AIS annually to the best miniature tall bearded iris. While the award was named for E.B Williamson and Alice White, it is perhaps more appropriate to honor Mary Williamson who did so much to popularize these iris rather than her father.

The Williamsons both had a profound effect on the development of iris in the U.S., from E.B. Williamson's breakthroughs with Louisiana iris and tall bearded iris, to Mary's Dykes Medal winner and her popularization of miniature tall bearded iris.

I am greatly indebted to the material found in Clarence Mahan's wonderful book Classic Irises and the Men and Women Who Created Them, as well as to Mary Hess for the use of her beautiful photographs.


Friday, August 16, 2019

2019 Williamson-White Medal Winner

The American Iris Society
Announces
The 2019 Williamson-White Medal
'Gesundheit'

'Gesundheit'--image by Terry Aitken

'Gesundheit' (Charles Bunnell, R. 2011) Seedling #Q110-1. MTB, 20-22 (5136 cm), Early midseason bloom. Standards and style arms bright yellow, irregular purple specks; falls slightly lighter yellow, random small purple streaks; beards bright yellow. Seedling #H25-1: (seedling #D45-1: ('Lucky Mistake' x 'Zebra') x seedling #C39-12: ('Welch's Reward' x unknown)) X 'Opal Imp'. Aitken's Salmon Creek 2012. Honorable Mention 2014, Award of Merit 2017.

This medal is restricted to miniature tall bearded (MTB) irises. It is named in honor of E. B. Williamson (1877-1933), his daughter Mary Williamson (1909-1987) and Alice White (1886-1969). Although others had introduced irises that fit into the miniature tall bearded iris class before Williamson, he and his daughter were the first to breed them as cultivars in a distinctive class of irises. They were apparently byproducts of breeding for tall bearded irises. In the early 1950's, Alice White of Hemet, California began a crusade to gain recognition of the assets of these wonderful smaller irises. She organized table iris robins and wrote many articles for the AIS Bulletin and gardening magazines promoting their virtues.

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.

Monday, September 17, 2018

California Dreaming 3--Fleur de Lis Iris Garden

By Bryce Williamson

My travel companion, Phil Williams, on this saga of California Dreaming, had to be wondering what the fuss is about good food in California. Leaving Bay View Gardens, we had a hasty lunch at a gourmet stop—Panda Express and then it was on the road again, over the Santa Cruz Mountains, through Silicon Valley, over the Mt. Diablo Mountains and towards Merced. Phil received his first dose of real California traffic since the 120 mile trip took over three hours and I considered the traffic to be light.

Dropping off the luggage at the Best Western, we decided to gamble that the daylight would last for a trip to Shirley Trio-Probst and Riley Probst’s Fleur de Lis Iris Gardens, Modesto, California. Along the way, we learned a hard lesson—don’t trust the GPS since it insisted on taking us way north and then looping back to Fine Avenue.

We arrived on a bad day since one of the dogs had died and Riley and Shirley were just in from a long trip with little sleep, but we were made welcome. Since they grow many reblooming irises and many of the reblooming irises flower early, there was a lot to see.


Shirley dabbles in hybridizing and her best known introduction is the Award of Merit winner ‘Opposites’.

Riley and Shirley

'Opposites'

Riley has won the Williamson-White Medal twice for miniature tall bearded irises. Currently ‘Holiday in Mexico’ is very popular and since this was written, won the 2018 Williamson-White Medal. Both Shirley and Riley are deeply involved in planning the 2019 National Convention at San Ramon.

'Holiday in Mexico' image by Rick Tasco

Here are some images of flowers I liked in the garden.

'All by Design' (Ghlio 2016)

'Aloha Spirit' (Ghio 2017)

Joe Ghio's 'Core Values' with Teddy, the tuxedo cat

'Picked for Pat' (Tyson 2018)

'Folies Bergere' (Ghio 2017)

'Love Changes' (Blyth 2010)

'Magic Mirror' (Ghio 2015)

'Not Broke This Time' (Tyson 20017)

'Reckless Abandon' (Keppel '2010)

'Swing Dancing' (Messick 1999)

The garden can be contacted at Fleur de Lis Garden, Riley and Shirley Trio Probst, 2701 Fine Ave., Modesto, CA 95355; 209-551-6323 (call first since they might be out visiting gardens); email: rprobst02@earthlink.net, shirleyjtrio@gmail.com.


Monday, August 28, 2017

THE WILLIAMSON-WHITE MEDAL 2017 -- Miniature Tall Bearded irises

By Susanne Holland Spicker

Please join with us in congratulating hybridizer Thomas Johnson as the recipient of The Williamson-White Medal for the outstanding miniature tall bearded iris for 2017 'TIC TAC TOE', a beautifully proportioned dainty bloom.

'TIC TAC TOE' (Thomas Johnson '10) Photo courtesy of Mid-America Garden

This charming Miniature Tall Bearded (MTB) iris is described by the AIS Wiki as follows:

'Tic Tac Toe' (Thomas Johnson '10)  MTB  24"  Late mid-season bloom. Standards and style arms pink; falls pearl violet, darker violet rim; beards orange. Tetraploid. Slight fragrance. Mid-America 2010. HM 2012, AM 2014, Williamson-White Medal 2017.  Hybridizer notes: strongly flared, shade darker towards the margins. Beautifully proportioned MTB stalks have 2 branches and spur, plus basal branch with spur. Double and sometimes triple sockets produce 10-14 dainty flowers. Vigorous, healthy clumps are a lovely sight.

We congratulate Thomas and thank him for another beautiful iris.

For a complete list of the AIS 2017 Awards, please visit http://wiki.irises.org/.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

2013 Williamson-White Medal Winner "Peebee and Jay"

By Renee Fraser


Please join us in congratulating Barbara & David Schmieder on their Williamson-White Medal winning iris "Peebee and Jay."



"Peebee and Jay"  Barbara and David Schmeider



This medal is restricted to miniature tall bearded (MTB) irises. It is named in honor of E. B. Williamson (1877-1933), his daughter Mary Williamson (1909-1987) and Alice White (1886-1969).  

On the AIS Awards page, Clarence Mahan tell us that "although others had introduced irises that fit into the miniature tall bearded iris class before
Williamson, he and his daughter were the first to breed them as cultivars in a distinctive class of irises."
"In the early 1950's, Alice White of Hemet, California began a crusade to gain recognition of the assets of these wonderful smaller irises. She organized table iris robins and wrote many articles for the AIS Bulletin and gardening magazines promoting their virtues. She encouraged iris hybridizers to breed these irises to obtain new and finer cultivars. She led the campaign to have a separate class established for table irises. When the class was finally approved, Alice White graciously accepted the name "miniature tall bearded" irises, although she always preferred to call them table irises."  

"Peebee and Jay" Photo credit Stout Gardens at Dancingtree

The description from the AIS Wiki says the following:
'Peebee And Jay' (Barbara & David Schmieder, R. 2005). Sdlg. 98-BP-1. MTB, 22" (56 cm), M. S. and style arms near moderate orange (RHS 166D); F. near strong purple (83C), thin rim similar to color of S., some white lines at haft; beards light yellow (10B). 'Bangles' X 'Pardner'. Hermit Medlars Walk 2006. HM 2009, AM 2011; Williamson-White Medal 2013.

For more information on Miniature Tall Bearded Irises, please visit the Dwarf Iris Society Webpage.