IRISES: The Bulletin of the AIS - Spring 2023 Edition

By Andi Rivarola

A warm welcome to those who are seeing IRISES, the Bulletin of The American Iris Society for the first time. If you are a member of The American Iris Society I hope you enjoy this new issue.

The Spring 2023 issue of the AIS Bulletin is already available online, accessible via the Emembers section of the AIS website. The print copy has been mailed via the U.S. Post Office. On the cover, 'Turkish Topaz' (Lloyd Austin 1962, AR) — aril species (Regalia) hybrid, photo by Claire Schneider (California). 

Note: to access this area of the website, you must have a current AIS Emembership. (AIS Emembership is separate from the normal AIS membership.) Please see the Electronic Membership Information are of the AIS website for more details.

A gorgeous issue starts with Species are awesome! by Olga Batalov on pages 10 — 17.

A description of the AIS Tall Bearded Iris Symposium by Riley Probst, on page18.

An article called Welcome new and returning directors! on pages 19 — 21.

Bonnie Nichols introduces us to the 2023 Emeritus Judge Appointment of Robert L. "Bob" Strohman on pages 22 — 23.

The 2022 AIS Honorary Award Recipients, an article by Jody Nolin on pages 25 through 27.

A fantastic new book by Kevin Vaughn, Dwarf and Median Barded IRISES, is presented on pages 28 and 29.

Browse through pages 30 though 33 to find out more about labels and garden maps. Claire Schneider introduces us to Welcome Newcomers: Time for Labels and Maps in the Garden.

All about the artistic design in show on Dawn Boyer's article, The Evolution of the AIS Artistic Design Certificate on pages 34 through 37.

If you are a judge, you may want to read Chapter 1 Accreditation of Judges: Appointment of Artistic Design Judges, on pages 38 — 39. 

A New AIS Membership Secretary is announced on page 44. 

There's a lot more to see and read in this edition of IRISES, either in digital or print formats.

/./././

Support the Work of The American Iris Society by Becoming a Member:

Not a member of the American Iris Society? Please see our website for information about becoming one: http://irises.org/
Happy Gardening!

• Annual Print Membership receives the printed version of Irises, the Bulletin of The American Iris Society, published four times annually.

• Annual E-membership views the online version of Irises, the Bulletin of The American Iris Society. Also, has access to the online iris checklist.

• The Annual Full Membership receives both benefits described above.

• Participate in AIS’s bi-monthly Webinar Series featuring AIS experts from around the U.S.

• Get connected with AIS members via our Facebook Group Iris Lovers, and other social media channels.

• Get to know about our lesser known irises, such as species, spuria, Japanese, Louisiana, Siberian and other beardless irises.

• Participate in the Annual convention. The next convention will be in Dallas, TX in 2023.  

• Support AIS's Mission of education, conservation, research, preserving historical archives, and outreach projects.

• Did you know that The American Iris Society is the registration authority for all rhizomatous irises worldwide?  

• The Iris Encyclopedia is available 24-7, 365 days a year, and filled with a wealth of iris knowledge. Stop by for a visit!

How to Create a New Iris

by Bob Pries

It is the holiday season and I am wrapping up one last iris gift. This one is very special for me because it was more than 30 years in the making. It comprises a passion for iris that has persisted all that time. Now that I am putting my garden to bed for the winter it seems a perfect time to bring out my dreams of what might happen in the future and reflect on the past.

 

I am talking about a webinar I am about to give for the American Iris Society on December 14. Members probably have already received the announcement in “News & Notes” but it is never too late to join.  Of course, if you are not passionate about irises this will be no better than another fruitcake. But hopefully, I can inspire one person to make an unusual cross.

Thirty years ago I chaired the committee that proposed the classification Spec-X for iris species crosses. Looking back, that proposal has turned into a remarkable success. While inquisitive hybridizers have always tried such experimental crosses, the awards system can now reward their efforts with deserved recognition. Today interspecies irises can earn the Randolph-Perry Medal, which is named in honor of Dr. L. F. Randolph (1894-1980) and Amos Perry (1871-1953). 

Preparing the webinar was like visiting all my iris heroes. There were many who have gone where no one went before. Acknowledging all those who have sent garden irises down new paths would be impossible. Hopefully, I won’t overwhelm my audience with too much information but have some tricks involving the Iris Encyclopedia that may help me cover everything.

My study of hybridizing has unearthed some “secrets” that every beginner should know. And in some ways, the webinar may be a primer for the new hybridizer. My title for the presentation is ‘How to Create a New Iris’. By "new" I mean truly new. Something that hasn’t existed before! My cover slide at the top of this blog shows a species I grew and flowered many years ago, Iris timofejewii. Notice the unique architectural carriage of its standards and falls that is also reflected in its leaves. To me, this is a classic work of art.

Species iris Iris timofejewii
photo by Bob Pries

Even if you are not interested in hybridizing you may enjoy seeing some of the more unusual forms/shapes/colors that are possible in the genus Iris.  I like to think out of the box and hope to show many perspectives that are not commonly recognized.  Here are a few exciting progeny from species crosses.

Species iris hybrid 'Roy Davidson'
photo by Lorena Reid


Species iris 'Mysterious Monique' 
photo by Ensata Gardens

Species iris 'Starry Bohdi'
photo by Wenji Xu

Species iris cross 'Nada'
photo by Paul Black

The American Iris Society Announces the 2022 Founders of SIGNA Medal Winner

'ALL STRIPES'

The Founders of SIGNA Medal is restricted to species irises (SPEC) and is named to honor the founding members of the Species Iris Group of North America (SIGNA). Previous awards winners can be found at https://wiki.irises.org/Main/InfoAwards.

'All Stripes'

photo by Carl Boro

'All Stripes'> (Marty Schafer and Jan Sacks, R. 2014). Seedling #SP07-3-10. SPEC (setosa), 18" (46 cm). Late midseason bloom. Standards insignificant bristles; style arms cream ground, heavily sanded raspberry; falls white ground heavily veined raspberry (RHS 72A), V-shaped white signal has touch of yellow at the hafts. Parentage unknown, SIGNA seed from Fumiharu Sato. Introduced by Joe Pye Weed's Garden of Marty Schafer and Jan Sacks 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 Award of Merit and Honorable Mention, will be published on the AIS website, the AIS Encyclopedia, and later in the AIS Bulletin, IRISES.

The Iris X-Files

by Bob Pries

Botanical names for hybrid irises are written Iris x species. They have more in common with the TV program X-Files than just the X. The television series dealt with FBI agent Molder investigating files that the department did not wish to touch, because they contained paranormal phenomena that could destroy the reputations of serious investigators. The botanical “X-files” have the same danger. In this regard it probably puts my credibility at risk to discuss my collection of “X-files,” but here goes.

The Kew Checklist of Botanical Names lists almost 200 hybrid binomials. For your consideration I have compiled a list, here, in the Iris Encyclopedia under “Botanical Nomenclature for Hybrids.” On inspection there are several that are relegated to just a few synonyms and these have interesting back stories.

Iris x violipurpurea and Iris x vinicolor

The first group I will mention brought about the fall of a giant in botany at the time. John Kunkel Small was a celebrated botanist. He had completed a flora of the Eastern United States and easily knew more about its flora than anyone else. The herculean task he accomplished cannot be denied. But he took a fateful train ride into the swamps of Louisiana. Looking out the window he saw scores of irises like he had never seen. He came back and collected a truckload that was sent back to the New York Botanical Garden to be grown and studied. He and his colleague Edward Johnston Alexander ultimately published a paper proclaiming about 110 species of irises in the Southern United States.

Iris brevicaulis, Iris giganticaerulea, and Iris fulva, the three parental species of Iris x volipurpurea

The botanical world was shocked! It was soon demonstrated by Percy Viosca that most of these irises were not new species but hybrids of Iris fulva, Iris giganticaerulea, and Iris brevicaulis.  The Kew lists reflects this by changing 61 of these names to hybrid names rather than accepting them, except as synonyms of one master name for this parentage of three parent species (Iris x violipurpurea). One other hybrid name was accepted as the name for just Iris fulva and giganticaerulea crosses (Iris x vinicolor).  So all of those names that Small thought were different enough to be separate species, were essentially lost. But this diversity could still be recognized as cultivar names.

Iris x volipurpurea "cultivars" 'Chrysophoenicia' and 'Chrysaeola' are similar to about 60 others that were originally considered species but were later classified as hybrids

Horticulturalists often complain about how botanical names continually change. This is because they denote evolutionary relationships. As the understanding of these relationships changes, so do the names. Horticultural ‘cultivar’ names are meant only to distinguish the types of plants and are usually unchanging. So these rejected species of Small became cultivars such as ‘Aurilinea’, ‘Chrysophoenicia’ and ‘Rosipurpurea’ etc. and were published as such in the 1939 American Iris Society Alphabetical Iris Check List. (The rule that cultivars could not have Latin names came later.) These cultivar names replace the botanical hybrid names.

Of course, when the world reacts it often overreacts. Viosca admitted that he was only referring to the irises that Small named in Louisiana. But many botanists immediately assumed that the irises that Small described from Florida were also hybrids. Dr. Phil Ogilvie championed more investigation into these irises and pointed out that each seemed to be relegated to its own river system in Florida. Henderson recognized Iris savannarum from Florida in The Flora of North American and relegated those other species as synonyms of savannarum. Today some botanists take an extreme view that all these irises are examples of the same species using the name Iris hexagona. So the pendulum swings.

Even botanists using some modern techniques claim Iris nelsoni as nothing but a hybrid Iris x nelsoni. But this stance puts a very rare group of irises from around the Abbeville, Louisiana area at greater risk because how much support can you gather to protect a hybrid versus a species? No one contests that in the past it developed as a hybrid from Iris fulva; but its ecological requirements today are very different, and it certainly plays a different role in the ecosystem. Other species have been shown to have been developed through hybridization, such as Iris versicolor from Iris setosa and Iris virginica.

Iris pallida and Iris variegata the two species that were parents of diploid tall-bearded "species"

Iris x amoena and Iris x squalens two irises resulting from the above cross

Another big group of botanical hybrid names (55) are those relegated to synonymy with Iris x germanica. Sir Michael Foster convincingly showed that a number of diploid tall bearded iris that had previously been called species probably formed as the result of the two diploid species Iris pallida and Iris variegata. The Kew Checklist gives Iris x germanica as the hybrid name for this parentage. When one sees Iris x squalens, Iris x amoena, Iris x neglecta, etc. This seems perfectly reasonable. But there are two other groups that do not fit well in this hypothesis.

“Grandma's Old Blue Iris” a sterile triploid

First is the iris that is widely grown and called Iris germanica. Unfortunately it has no other name to distinguish it except “Grandmas Old Blue Iris” It is often referred to as triploid, and seems totally sterile. Unlike the other “Germanicas” it is an intermediate iris. It is said to have 44 chromosomes. Pallida and Variegata have 24 chromosomes. Many believe it is the product of a 40-chromosome parent (20 chromosome gamete) and a 24-chromosome parent with an unreduced gamete. Iris albicans and Iris florentina share a similar type of background, and are sterile; but presumably come each from a different 40-chromosome parent.

The other group being referred to Iris x germanica are presumably 48-chromosome tall bearded irises. Murray was troubled by the fact that modern tall bearded irises were tetraploid while the earlier TBs were diploid so he proposed a new name Iris x altobarbata, which in Latin means tall-bearded. The Kew Checklist does not accept this name probably on a procedural technicality. Another attempt to name the tetraploid “germanicas” was made by Henderson with his Iris x conglomerata (a name not mentioned in the Kew list. Henderson’s argument was that many species have gone into the TBs including Iris pumila, hence the conglomerate. This name did not follow all the rules of publication.

'Amas', a tetraploid I. germanica

Despite two attempts, no satisfactory name has emerged for this group.  I have yet to see strong evidence that the tetraploids emerged from the combination of Iris pallida and Iris variegata which is how I. x germanica is being defined. There have been several “species” that have been defined as I. germanica. One of the key iris to be added to the pallida/variegata mix that precipitated tetraploid offspring was ‘Amas’ which is probably best viewed as a cultivar. Itself of hybrid origin it did not produce pods but its pollen changed the face of tall-bearded irises by fathering the new tetraploid I. germanica cultivars.

There are a number of irises that were essentially cultivars, and expressed here as botanical hybrids but could be candidates for the name of the 48-chromosome species that are relegated to Iris x germanica if one does not buy into the parentage as resulting from the two diploids  I. pallida and I. variegata.

Like the X-files of TV, the data can be debated. I have just pointed out two botanical hybrid names (Iris x germanica and Iris x violipurpurea) that account for half of the list of 200. There are still many x-names that function admirably to identify groups that originate from a given set of species. And there are also many more that have not been included in the list. But perusing what is listed may widen ones knowledge of various lineages. As agent Molder would say “The truth is out there.” Take a look at the X-Files, here.

IRISES: The Bulletin of the AIS - Summer 2021 Edition

By Andi Rivarola

A warm welcome to those who are seeing IRISES, the Bulletin of The American Iris Society for the first time. If you are a member of The American Iris Society I hope you enjoy this new issue.

The Summer 2021 issue of the AIS Bulletin will be available online soon, accessible via the Emembers section of the AIS website. The print copy has been mailed via the U.S. Post Office. On the cover, I. reichenbachii by Tom Waters; see story on page 29.

Note: to access this area of the website you must have a current AIS Emembership. (AIS Emembership is separate from the normal AIS membership.) Please see the Electronic Membership Information area of the AIS website for more details.

On page 10 Howie Dash makes a plea for auction items as he and Scarlett Ayres finish up their preparations for the Las Cruces, NM National Convention of The American Iris Society. He says, "Please go through your closets, storage boxes, garage, and basement looking for donations of clean treasures of any kind for the Silent Auction. There will be people there who love irises including people who love iris books, iris dishes, iris clothing, old iris catalogs, gardening items, and IRIS ANYTHING!"

Don't miss Section Happenings on pages 14 and 15, it contains great information about AIS Sections such as, the Median Iris Society, the Spuria Iris Society, HIPS (the Historic Iris Preservation Iris Society), and the Novelty Iris Society.

The AIS Board is meeting in person this Fall, read the information and sign up for the meeting by filling out a form located on page 17.

Youth Views is on page 29 by Cheryl Deaton with information about the 2020 Clarke Cosgrove memorial Award for Youth Achievement.

Information about the AIS Foundation's Ackerman Youth Essay Contest, by Debbie Strauss on pages 20 through 25. 

A great reprint from this very blog by Tom Waters, the article is called "Tappying the Potential of Iris reichenbachii," on pages 29 through 31.

Lastly, a second article was reprinted from this blog: "The Next Generation: Starting PCI Seeds," by none other than Kathleen Sayce on pages 32 — 33.

There's a lot more to see and read in this edition of IRISES, either in digital or print formats.

Not a member of The American Iris Society? Please see our website for information about becoming one: http://irises.org/

Happy Gardening!

The American Iris Society Announces the 2021 Founders of SIGNA Medal Winners

'BLUE RIVULETS' and 'SUSHI'

The Founders of SIGNA Medal is restricted to species irises (SPEC) and is named to honor the founding members of the Species Iris Group of North America (SIGNA).

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.

BLUE RIVULETS (Chad Harris)

'Blue Rivulets' (Chad Harris, R. 2012) Seedling #O7LAK1. SPEC (laevigata), 30 (76 cm). Midseason bloom. Standards white, center blue-violet (RHS 104C) vein; style arms blue-violet, white center line rib, crests same, edged white rim; falls white, blue-violet veins radiating from lemon-yellow signal almost to fall edge. Parentage unknown, seed from SIGNA, 2004, Shimizu. Iris laevigata. Mt. Pleasant 2013.

SUSHI (Jill Copeland)

'Sushi' (Jill Copeland, R. 2013) Seedling #T-1. SPEC, 39 (99 cm). Early midseason bloom. Standards and style arms white (RHS 155B); falls cream to very light yellow (3C to 4D), signal lines violet (83A-83B). I.pseudacorus X self. Ensata 2013.

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.

FOR THE FLOWER OF THE BLUE LILY

By Sylvain Ruaud 

The Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo is better known for his "Concierto de Aranjuez" than for his symphonic poem "Per la flor del lliri blau", which translates from Catalan to English as "For the flower of the blue lily", yet it is this one that we are going to discuss today. It is based on a dark medieval legend from the Valencia region in southeastern Spain, which tells how the three sons of a dying king go in search of the blue lily whose magical powers could save their father. It is the youngest of the three who discovers the famous flower, but he is killed by his brothers who want to keep for themselves the glory of having brought back the miraculous remedy. I don't believe that there is a blue lily. But the legend probably makes the same confusion as the one which, in many countries, assimilates the lily — the iris. The legendary blue lily must therefore have been an iris.

But which iris could it be? I have found several species of blue iris growing spontaneously or that can grow in Spain. This chronicle will be the opportunity to get to know these species a little.

Let's start by talking about the Algerian iris, I. unguicularis (Poiret 1785). It is probably the most known species because it is the most common. It is found spontaneously in Spain where it finds the mild climate that suits it and allows it to develop its blue flowers, fragrant, which brighten up our gardens in winter. But is this the species that the three brothers of the legend went to look for? Probably not, because it is not a rare species. It is therefore not surrounded by the mystery that rarity confers.

Could it be the case of I. lutescens (Lambert 1789)? It is a species of the pumila family, the dwarf irises which are at the base of our hybrid SDB, which produces flowers with largely developed petals above small and curved sepals. It exists in several colors, among them blue, but it is not its main color since when we speak about I. lutescens we see rather yellow flowers. Certainly this species is present in Spain, but it is not the one I bet.

One could think of I. iberica var. elegantissima (Fedorov/Takhtadjian 1915)? Here is a species whose name immediately makes one think of a Spanish plant, but, even if it is a superb plant, with the undeniable class proper to the iris oncocyclus and the strangeness which can lead to the legend, it is not possible that this is the one that the three brothers were looking for. Indeed this very small plant, with rather large and always brightly colored flowers, is only very rarely in shades of blue while exists mainly in shades of white and brown, with styles curiously lying on the sepals, black, and which give it a vague air of baboon snout. Unfortunately, in spite of its botanical name, this species does not grow in Spain since it is native to Central Asia and that it meets only in this region, thus very far from Valencia. (2)

Since it cannot be the previous one, can we then imagine that it is Iris Xiphium vulgare (Linné 1753), the base of the family of Xiphium, known normally under the name of iris of Spain. This is a plant of good size (60 cm) that grows in dry soils that are found among others around Valencia and is distinguished by flowers often blue and marked with a yellow signal. Have we found the "lliri blau" that inspired Joaquin Rodrigo? It is unlikely. It is not a rare plant, it is rather showy, considering its size, and it is not necessarily that blue...

The blue is more precisely the color of another Xiphium, the famous Iris X. latifolium (P. Miller 1768), the bulbous iris of the Pyrenees, which was transported to Great Britain and developed so well there that it is commonly called the Iris of England. But this iris likes humid and acidic mountain meadows. It is thus very unlikely that it was one day present in the area of Valencia.

Would the Valencian legend be only a legend? Is there no blue iris near the Mediterranean Sea, in the South of Spain? It would be to forget Juno planifolia (Ascherson/Graeber 1906) (see photo)(1). It is a very small plant (not more than ten centimeters) whose flowers bloom at the end of winter, it is called in Spain the Christmas iris. They are of a soft blue, lilac, marked with brighter blue on the sepals and finely veined of yellow. They are hidden under the foliage and are then signaled especially by their delicate perfume. From there to think that they could well be these blue lilies of which the legend speaks? 

The three brothers who wanted to save their father must have discovered, somewhere above Valencia, this little marvel with its exceptional perfume. But filial love was not the main motivation of the two elders. They committed the irreparable to make a selfish and derisory profit from the discovery of their youngest son.

Today, when one loves both irises and music, one can enjoy both Juno planifolia and "Per la flor del lliri blau", which is an advantage that the three brothers of the legend did not have.

(1) The photographer, Robert F. Hamilton, is a specialist in botanical irises and lives in Tasmania. 

(2)  I. iberica was named after a people who once inhabited the foothills of the Caucasus, in present-day Georgia.

Wild Pacifica Irises in Northern California

By Kathleen Sayce, with Photos by Tom Lofken

Tom lives in northern California, and took the photos for this essay over several years. 

Iris douglasiana

First up is a tough, widely distributed iris, Iris douglasiana, which grows naturally from southern Oregon to southern California near Santa Barbara. Tom took this image at Point Reyes, where an extensive purple-flowered population can be found. 

Yellow, white, rose pink and lavender flowers are also common for this species, which produces some of the toughest plants the Pacifica Iris group for gardens. 

Iris hartwegii ssp. pinetorum

Next, from the Sierra Nevada foothills, Iris hartwegii ssp. pinetorum.  This subspecies may eventually be re-elevated to species status as its genetics are distinctly different from other subspecies. I. h. pinetorum grows in the California Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada, where it prefers flats in open pine forests. 

[Readers may recall I grow Iris hartwegii ssp. australis in my garden; this subspecies grows only in the Transverse Ranges of southern California.]

Iris macrosiphon

Iris macrosiphon is widespread in northern California and also varies in flower color. It is found around the Bay Area in the mountains, and north in the Coast Range to the Klamath Range, northern California. I. macrosiphon has a very long ovary tube—the ‘stem’ between the ovary and the flower petals. The leafy bracts in the photo cover the long tube. The ovary sits just above the base of the bracts and well below the flower. 

Iris tenuissima ssp. tenuissima 

Iris tenuissima ssp. tenuissima is found in northern California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills and Coast Range. Flowers are pale yellow to white, with dark maroon to red veins. 

Iris bracteata

Iris bracteata grows in northern California and southern Oregon, has pale yellow flowers with dark veins, often with a reddish color to the perianth tubed, and is typically found in yellow pine forests above 1,000 ft elevation. This photo is from Josephine County, Oregon. 

Iris chrysophylla

Iris chrysophylla has strikingly long stigmatic crests, those petal bits that stick up on the style arms.  These look like two long teeth (a vampire’s long canines), in an otherwise typical wild Pacifica Iris flower. Flowers are usually pale yellow, can be white, and are veined burgundy on the falls. This species grows in open coniferous forests in northern California and southern Oregon. 

Iris thompsonii

Tom looked for the golden iris, Iris innominata in northern California, which grows wild only in southern Oregon. It has lovely yellow (dark gold to pale yellow) flowers. 

Instead, he found a hybrid of Iris thompsonii, possibly crossed with I. bracteata or I. tenuissima, showing pale petals, strong veining, and growing in densely floriferous clumps. 

Like I. innominata, I. thompsonii is deciduous, with leaves dying back to the ground each winter. 

Other species that share this trait are Iris tenax and I. hartwegii. 

Taxonomy:

For current taxonomy, refer to The Jepson Manual, 2nd edition, for a key to Irises species in this subsection. All taxa except Iris tenax ssp. tenax and ssp. gormanii are covered in this key.  

Older taxonomy references include Victor Cohen, A field guide to species, and Lee Lentz’s books. The latter three publications are available to download by members of the Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris on the SPCNI website in the members only area.