Irises: Iris class, 1 by hespiris

hespiris wrote:
Thank you Oldgardenrose for starting this topic. Tough to have a discussion, or understand what you are reading without the right language. I found much confusing at first, but the more you see/read, the more sense it makes. 'Haft' has always been an interesting discussion in the historic garden - I'll take that one on....

HAFT

In the 1925 Cornell Extension Bulletin #112 is a diagram of the Structure of the Iris Flower of which I am posting a portion of. The front-most fall was removed to see this part better.

As the botanical word it is, the haft it is the thin portion that attaches the blade of the fall to the perianth tube. The claw is the corresponding thin portion attaching the blade of the standard to the perianth tube. You would only be able to see them from the side, or from above with the standards held open. To really look it is easier to remove the petal.

Keep in mind that named cultivars at the turn of the 19th-20th century were only several generations away from species; that there was as much, if not more interest and familiarity in non-bearded such as Siberian; and that the language was botanical rather than that of garden lay-persons. So when reading early descriptions, at the least pre-1930's, most likely the true parts were being discussed. References to ‘haft markings’ meant marks on the thin haft (and/or possibly claw), as more readily seen on the historic Siberians. Quite early on, any use of the word claw phased out, and you might see a reference noting 'red-brown marks on haft of fall, as well as of standard'.

Intermittently in the catalogs of the 1940's-50's, blooms would be described with shoulder marks or haft marks extending down a third or half of the fall, or simply called marks - generally extolling how few there were when well into the 1950's. In this period, we see pictures with the haft arrow pointing to the shoulder of the top of the falls in a number of catalogs. Essentially we gardeners (or a few iris growers?) had in fact reassigned the haft to that area which we at one time referred to as the shoulder. No wonder the question of 'where is the haft' causes a bit of confusion!

I think this was reinforced with the maniacal intent to do away with any 'haft marks' as they were thought to distract. Granted, I guess if 80% of the iris you see have haft marks extending onto the shoulder and many are blended colors or plicata, the new and different look would be solid self-colored irises. Funny that a trend is starting to return to shoulder marks - oh sorry... haft marks.

While the haft is the haft elsewhere, we iris folk point to the top-most portion of the fall and have emphatically called it the haft for at least 60 years! This is an area where common-garden-language-error trumps botanical-correctness. I doubt it will self correct. But really, would it be so hard to think 'shoulder marks' - it would make life easier in the long run. As language is always evolving - we'll see. The important thing is that we all use the same definition.

So while I know where the haft IS, I also know how the word is applied in earlier segments of iris history as compared to later/current eras.
hespiris