Historic Iris

I have four colors that I grow that are from my parents place. They have been naturalizing for 40 years. I would love to ID them. Does anyone know of a site that might have pics of several named historics. I wanted to show them last year but didn't have names.
Thanks

After 40 yrs of naturalizing, it is very possible your parents' iris patch may be growing a number of seedlings from the original plants. Since seedlings do not grow true to the parent plants, those seedlings are not registered cultivars, even if the original clumps were registered. Of course, the original clumps may not have been registered cultivars to begin with.

Even if the plants you dug from your parents' house are registered cultivars, the likelihood of being able to positively ID them (or any irises) from photographs alone is next to nil. Remember that there are nearly 56,000 registered iris cultivars, many of which are almost indistinguishable from one another.

The following two articles will explain the very complex procedure involved in attempting to identify unknown irises:

http://www.worldiris.com/public_html/Frame_pages/ID.html
http://www.worldiris.com/public_html/Identification/Photo_ID1.html

Good luck!

Laurie

Thanks for the reply. I will check out the website.

Argyle Acres has a good collection of historical iris.

If you see one similiar to yours, perhaps you could buy one & compare blooms. As Laurie says, the older they are, the harder they are to trace down.

http://www.argyleacres.com/gallery.asp

This message was edited Nov 21, 2004 3:35 PM