by Jean Richter
Part II: Rebloomers and the Dawn of
the Space Age
Thanksgiving Firelight (Austin 1950) rebloomer
Another of Austin’s major interests was the popularization
and improvement of reblooming iris, those iris that bloom more than just once
in the spring. He realized early on that if iris were ever to become popular
with the general gardening public, multiple-season-blooming iris of quality
would be essential to their success. He collected and publicized the available
reblooming cultivars, and worked them into his own breeding program.
He began selling reblooming iris in his earliest catalogs,
and by the early 1950s had begun categorizing the rebloomers he sold by the
month in which they would rebloom, thereby assisting buyers in the selection of
rebloomers appropriate for their area.
Austin introduced many rebloomers of his own, greatly
expanding the number of available varieties. While some may have been named
with a bit too much optimism (‘Blue
Everbloomer’, for example), quite a number of them are excellent growers and
reliable rebloomers, such as ‘Winter Flame’ (1953) , ‘Winter Gold’ (1965),
and ‘Rip Van Winkle’ (1963).
Winter Flame (Austin 1953) rebloomer
In May 1944, Lloyd Austin was visiting the garden of Sydney
B. Mitchell (an associate of Carl Salbach) in Berkeley, and noticed a ruffled
plicata seedling, M-5-38 (introduced in 1945 as ‘Advance Guard’), that
possessed a slight projection at the end of its beard. As Professor Mitchell
had no interest in pursuing the possibilities of this anomalous beard
morphology, he allowed Austin to use it in his hybridizing experiments. He
selfed M-5-38, and noticed that one of the resulting seedlings had the
beginnings of horns – a lavender fancy numbered 638.
Among a number of other discarded seedlings he had received
from Professor Mitchell, Austin found another with a tendency to form a
projection at the end of its beard – JS-M-176B. Austin crossed 9 flowers of
JS-M-176B with pollen from 638, resulting in 296 seeds. As the seedlings from
these crosses bloomed, he discovered that the great majority had horns to some
extent. 56 of these horned seedlings were reselected, and from this one cross
came the first wave of Austin’s horned introductions: ‘Unicorn’ (1954) (the
first introduced horned iris, initially offered for the princely sum of $100!),
‘Mulberry Snow’ (1955), ‘Plumed Delight’ (1955), ‘Wings of Flight’ (1957), and
‘Spooned Fantom’ (1960).
Unicorn (Austin 1954)
Horned Mystery (Austin 1961)
Spooned Fantom (Austin 1960)
Austin then pollinated JS-M-176B X 638 seedlings with pollen
from a number of different tangerine-bearded pink iris, including ‘Twilight
Sky,’ which resulted in both ‘Horned Skylark’ (1957) and ‘Pink Unicorn’ (1960);
‘Cherie’s pollen produced ‘Horned
Rubyfalls’ (1958); ‘Pink Formal’s pollen produced ‘Horned Rosyred’ (1958);
‘Fantasy’s pollen produced ‘Horned Royalty’ (1958); and ‘Pink Tower’s pollen
produced ‘Horned Amethyst’ (1960).
Pink Unicorn (Austin 1960)
Horned Rosyred (Austin 1958)
For the rest of his life, Austin pursued his hybridizing
program with space age iris, introducing many horned, spooned, and flounced
iris. His work was cut short by his sudden death in 1963 – one can only wonder
what new and exciting varieties he would have developed if he had had the
opportunity to fully explore the possibilities of space age iris.
Magic Rosette (Austin 1966)
Editor's Note: Jean will conclude her informative information about Lloyd Austin next week in the third part of this series.
