Help with Iris ID

11 years ago

Folks,

My mother-in-law passed a bunch of iris rhizomes to me and my wife in 2010 (I think). Her mother in Kentucky had given a bunch of them to her some time back, and we got the surplus again after I don't know how many years of increase.

Anyway, this is the first bloom on any of them. 2010 and 2011 were bad drought years here, and I'm coming to realize Houston isn't the favorite place for TB iris to live.

The bloom is about 3" tall and about 3" wide. The color is pretty representative -- a lightish purple. I didn't measure the height, but it's under two feet (possibly not representative). It would have had 3 buds, but two seem to have withered.

Based on their origin, I'm guessing this cultivar is at least a few decades old and probably pretty common. I'm attaching two photos.

Thanks,
Nate

Comments (10)

dementieva
Original Author
11 years ago
Second photo.
iris_gal
11 years ago
Hi Nate.
What we need for possible id are a couple more pics from different angles. Need to see a sharper picture of the beard-haft area. Can't tell if the beard is yellow tipped to the end or turns whitish, which would rule out some.

But here are a couple of names of historics that could be investigated.

Andalusian Blue -- IB, Schreiner'39, has the distintive light streak below beard

Celeste -- Lemon 1858, falls may be too narrow, beard may be too orange in the throat, has the distintive light streak below beard

Dalmatica -- very old, only have one pic. - beard ends white
Iris pallida -- aka pallida dalmatica

Great Lakes -- popular, Dykes Medal 1942, lots of mismarked pics floating around, has the distintive light streak below beard

Remember that lavender often photographs as blue!
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dementieva
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks for the help! I'll try to get more close photos of the beard area. If I can't get any more photos of this one, it may be a while before another one blooms.

Thanks for the tip about looking at photos. My iris is definitely not blue.

Is there much variance in how a particular iris looks based on the soil quality, soil acidity, and local temperature? Some daylilies look very different in different gardens.

Your suggestions are all pretty good. I'm having a hard time eliminating any of them based on the photos I'm finding vs. the photos I posted.

Nate
dementieva
Original Author
11 years ago
The second bloom opened, so I'm attaching some better photos. I severely underestimated this scape's blooming power; it looks like all the buds are good, and there are actually 4 of them.

Any more help is welcome!

Thanks,
Nate
dementieva
Original Author
11 years ago
Next...
dementieva
Original Author
11 years ago
Then...
dementieva
Original Author
11 years ago
And...
dementieva
Original Author
11 years ago
Finally...
iris_gal
11 years ago
Oh goody. I'll download these and study them some more.

I've bought iris from a neighboring area with winter temps. that support peonies and lilacs (mine doesn't). And her soil totally different too. Iris color looked the same in my garden of adobe soil as in her decomposed granite that water ran straight thru. Iris I've purchased from the midwest match those grown on the west coast. Of course rhizome size is different.

Daylilies, another story.
dementieva
Original Author
11 years ago
Good to know!

Thanks for looking more -- I looked at online photos again for the cultivars you posted, and I am still not sure. Of course, how many online photos are mislabeled anyway...

Thanks,
Nate