By Jean Richter
Turkish Topaz (Austin 1962)
Horned Flare (Austin 1963)
Part I: Early Life and Arilbreds
Around 15 years ago, when I first became interested in iris,
I spent a few years merely assisting my housemate with the care of several pots
of iris she had rescued from her late mother’s garden. What really got me
hooked on iris was a visit to Bluebird Haven Iris Garden, located near
Placerville, California (we had gone there in search of identifications for my
housemate’s iris). Among the great variety of beautiful iris in bloom there, I
was particularly struck by the space-agers – those iris featuring unusual
beards in the form of horns, spoons, and flounces. I ordered some rhizomes, and
the rest, as they say, is history – I now grow close to 300 different iris.
Love them or hate them, we have hybridizer Lloyd Austin to
thank for the space age iris. It was through his vision and dedication that
these varieties came into being, and for me it is a pity that he did not live
to see the prominence and popularity that space age iris now enjoy - a space
age iris was first awarded a Dykes Medal (the highest honor an iris can
receive) more than twenty years after his death.
Lloyd Austin made many other contributions to the iris world
besides the space agers, however– lesser known, but equally important to his
legacy, are his contributions to the development and popularization of aril and
arilbred iris, as well as reblooming iris.
Exotic Fire (Austin 1964) reblooming iris
Lloyd Austin was born in 1898 in Westfield, Massachusetts.
After serving in World War I, he became an instructor in the Pomology
Department at the University of California’s College of Agriculture at Davis.
[For those ignorant of the meaning of the term (including the author before she
researched this article), pomology is the science of fruit and nut production
and distribution.] In 1925 he became the first director of the Institute of
Forest Genetics in Placerville, California.
By 1944 he had determined that he was going to hybridize
iris, with his initial specialization being aril and arilbred iris (aril iris
are exotic desert iris found from the Middle East to the Himalayas, and
arilbreds are hybrids of aril and tall bearded iris). For a time just prior to
the establishment of his own Rainbow Hybridizing Gardens in 1946, he was
associated with Carl Salbach’s iris enterprise in Berkeley, California, an association that was later to
prove crucial in the development of the first space age iris.
Flounced Frivolite (Austin 1964)
Rainbow Hybridizing Gardens published its first catalog in
1946, and remained in business for twenty years. After Lloyd Austin’s death in
1963, his widow Gladys kept the business going for a few final years in order
to introduce his last few cultivars, but sadly the enterprise ceased operations
for good after 1966.
Once he had established his interest in aril and arilbred
iris hybridizing, Austin began the laborious process of accumulating stock in
sufficient quantity to launch his ambitious breeding program. World War II had
a very serious impact on aril iris – the old Middle East sources were
eliminated by the war, and most of the European dealers and growers lost their
entire stock. One of the first, and most important, of Austin’s accomplishments
in the aril world was to relocate sources for these iris, bringing them back
into commerce or introducing them into commerce for the first time. At the time
of his death, almost all of the rare aril species stocks in the U.S.A.
originated from his importations.
Gold of Ophir (Austin 1955)
In the ensuing years Austin introduced many arils and aril
hybrids; some based on pure aril parents, and others derived from the van
Tubergen regeliocycli crossed with oncocyclus species or hybrids. He was
particularly responsible for rediscovering and publicizing the fertility of the
regeliocycli. He also worked extensively with the oncobreds; introducing a
large number of new varieties, including one of the few ‘Capitola’ seedlings in a yellow color range, ‘Real Gold’ (1952).
Sadly, in the late 1950s Austin made the difficult decision
to discontinue his aril and arilbred hybridization program. Given the
difficulties growing these iris, issues with delayed germination, and the niche
status of the aril/arilbred market, financial considerations forced him to
concentrate his hybridizing efforts on the more profitable tall bearded iris in
order to keep his business viable. He still continued to publicize and sell
arilbreds in his later catalogs, however.
Coming up in Part 2: reblooming iris and the dawn of the
space age… Editor's Note: This is a revised and edited version of an article first published in The Bulletin of Region 14, American Iris Society.
