Announces the
2018 Sass Medal Winner
'Cat In The Hat'
This medal is restricted to intermediate bearded (IB)
irises. It is named in honor of Hans Sass (1868-1949) and Jacob Sass (1872-1945). Both of the Sass brothers bred all types of irises that would grow in Nebraska, but their early fame as hybridizers came for their work producing intermediate bearded irises. Crossing dwarf irises with tall bearded irises, they were the first American breeders to develop many new colors and forms in the intermediate class. They saw the great advantage of intermediate bearded irises on the windy prairie, and the value of a type of iris that filled out the bloom season between the early dwarf irises and the later tall bearded irises.
'Cat In The Hat'--image by Paul Black
'Cat In The Hat' (Paul Black, R. 2009) is a late
midseason to very late blooming IB. Standards medium raspberry, overall network of
darker veins; style arms medium pinkish-raspberry; falls cream, very wide
medium raspberry plicata band covering 2/3 of petal, medium raspberry plicata
lines and dots over center 1/3 and wide stripe from end of beard to 2/3 of way
down center, variable amount of markings on center; beards orange, white at
end; ruffled; slight musky fragrance. Introduced by Mid-America in 2009, it won
an Honorable Mention 2011 and an Award of Merit 2014.
The World of Irises blog will be posting once a day the
other 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.
