Iris Reticulata - 2017

[Alan McMurtrie]

I believe a key identifier for Snow-White is the curled fall.  I'll just point out that Snow-White does have some yellow beside the ridge, and the blue veining and dots were light greenish where they mixed with the yellow.  I see some of that on the falls of your flowers

One that I'm more familiar with is Eye Catcher.  I get thrown a bit when I see lots of blue in the style lobes, or see a lot of dotting on the sides of the falls.  This isn't a characteristic I normally see.  I'm a bit puzzled to understand why this happens.  The first 3 pictures were taken by other people:

Style lobes quite blue [first photo by Kit Strange]




Style lobes with some blue, and uncharacteristic dotting at sides of falls


This is the Eye Catcher I'm familiar with (the flowers are more white when exposed to sunlight)


This is more correctly what you should see in the garden [photo at 2016 Lentetuin]

[Roma]

Iris 'Eyecatcher' in my greenhouse.  This is their second year with me and fewer flowering bulbs than I started with.  A few of them are deformed and I wonder about virus.
Iris 'North Star' I think this is nearer the true colour than the one I posted earlier.  The camera sees colours differently according to the intensity of light.   

[Alan McMurtrie]

Hi Roma,

Eye Catcher is not virused.  For some bizarre reason this is a temporary characteristic -- something is unstable in determining the number of flower parts to produce.  Take a look at the last two photos of Eye Catcher in my post above.  You'll see a number of the flowers have extra parts, or the wrong parts.  This won't be consistent from year-to-year.  There are some "normal" flowers in there as well.

Here's one with mirrored ½ Standard and ½ Fall along with reduced styles, all of which are suppose to be standards.  I took the photo at Jacques Amand Nursery last February.  Note: pale yellow is because flower hasn't seen sunlight.


A key to getting flowering bulbs is to give the plants a long growing season so the bulbs can regenerate to a good size.  I find bulbs >1cm will bloom.

[Roma]

Thanks, Alan.  Glad I don't have to throw them away.  Must try feeding them more this year.  I had trouble with bulbs rotting last year.  Not sure if it was over watering later or if the damage was caused when I lost a few panes of glass from the greenhouse in December 2015 followed by torrential rain.   I did cover up as much as I could but they could have been soaked before then.

[Alan McMurtrie]

Last Winter / Spring in England there were problems with all of the rain.  The potting mix used by Jacques Amand, which normally is quite good, was retaining too much moisture. You could see bulbs that had stopped growing and were rotting.

Here in Canada I now leave some straw on the seedling beds, and try to do some watering later on in order to keep the ground slightly moist and keep the small bulbs growing as much as possible.  Since they are closer to the soil surface they are the most likely to stop growing when the hot weather comes.

I can see it in the leaves when a bulb is rotting.  Of course it's too late to do anything by then.  I have raised beds, and it might help if I added a bit of concrete sand (i.e. coarse sand).  [I have done that as an experiment a couple years ago.  It does seem good, but I haven't put the effort in to trying it in other sections of the garden.]  Coarse sand on it's own is not that great for Retics because it dries out too quickly in the warm weather, stopping growth.  The area where I live has clay soil, but I had "sandy loam" trucked in to make the beds.  Is it really sandy loam?  Think of it as good garden soil.

I do have bulbs being grown in sandy loam at a farm 2 hours from Toronto.  The bulbs do about the same as here.

A friend's garden 20 minutes to the North has loam soil.  Bulbs do okay, but sometimes there is a bit of loss to rot.  Some varieties do reasonably well.

It's always a good idea to have a few bulbs in a second location (including a second pot; but not kept right beside the first one)

Could even help to have a slightly different soil mix in the second pot.

[Alan McMurtrie]

Reticulata Taxonomy
I am publishing this here as a draft.  I believe it is a good idea to have my thoughts documented so-to-speak.  Further study is needed to refine this more.  For example, is Norman Steven’s Adiyaman Retic part of group B like I’m hoping, or should it be in Group A possibly as Iris reticulata var Adiyaman?  I am working to resolve this.  I have a number of other 2n=18 candidates that I’m also studying.  As you know, my most interesting hybrids are from crosses between Iris danfordiae, sophenensis, and Çat ANMc2325.

I am also working to determine if zagrica is indeed part of Group A.

Iris reticulata is a very variable species.  I believe both bakeriana and hyrcana are forms of Iris reticulata.  So Iris reticulata var Bakeriana comprises clones found between Mardin and Savur in Turkey.  I treat the Iranian clones that people attribute to bakeriana as simply separate varieties of Iris reticulata that happen to have dark falls / more than 4 ribs to their leaves.

Iris reticulata also has other ranges of variability from olive coloured pollen to seed capsules well above the ground, as I documented many years ago.  I not sure if I got it published anywhere, but it was part of my presentation to The Adirondack Chapter of NARGS March 20, 2004 — the slide deck is on the Articles page of my website.

I was disappointed when Iris celikii was described because to me it is simply an inferior form of Iris danfordiae.  Similarly, the fact Reticulata Iris kopetdaghensis’ feature of blooming above it’s leaves is not unique enough to give it specific status — it is Iris reticulata var. Kopetdaghensis.

[Steve Garvie]

Iris reticulata from Adiyaman, Turkey.


Iris reticulata caucasica


Iris zagrica


Iris pamphylica

[Cfred72]

Iris Pamphyllica has beautiful colors. Is it a species or something?

[Alan McMurtrie]

Wonderful pictures Steve

[Gail]

Wonderful pictures Steve

I agree, that Iris pamphylica against the black background is simply stunning.

[Steve Garvie]

Many thanks Alan and Gail!

Fred Iris pamphylica is an uncommon Turkish Iris species.
There is more about it here: http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=3033.0

[Cfred72]

Thanks for the link Steve 

[YT]

Iris histrio, JJA 588.406. Turky, Hatay, W of Kişlak. Ex a N. Stevens coll.

[Matt T]

A wonderful pot full, Tatsuo!

[David Nicholson]

Beautiful Tatsou.