Category: oakland cemetery

From “White Flags” in Garden Bulbs for the South by Scott Ogden:

“The first perennial irises to bloom in spring are several antique bearded types of dwarfish stature. Because their height is modest, they are usually included in the median iris group… in modern classifications. The ‘beards’ of these species are formed by long rows of feathery stamens, which mark the centers of the three outer petals, or falls. The inner petals, or standards, curve upward and inward to create the familiar fleur-de-lis seen as a motif in historic art and architecture….

“The most familiar of the historic irises in the South is the old white flag, Iris albicans. The Latin epithet, which translates as ‘off-white,’ was given to plants found growing in Spain during the mid-1800s. Although these irises are now common waifs in many warm countries, their original homeland appears to be on the Arabian Peninsula. Tradition holds that the Moors carried this iris wherever they traveled in conquest, planting the flowers as memorials on the graves of fallen Muslim soldiers….

“When Spanish colonists came to Florida and Mexico, they brought this Mediterranean flower with them and continued the tradition of planting them in cemeteries. These are now the most common irises in the South. The leaden flowers and gray, sword-shaped leaves of Iris albicans line paths and fill graveyards and vacant fields in March….”

From “A White Iris” by Pauline B. Barrington in The Melody of Earth: An Anthology of Garden and Nature Poems, selected by Gertrude Moore Richards:

Tall and clothed in samite,
Chaste and pure,
In smooth armor, —
Your head held high
In its helmet
Of silver:
Jean D’Arc riding
Among the sword blades!

Has Spring for you
Wrought visions,
As it did for her
In a garden?

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Hello!

This is the sixth of ten posts featuring photographs of irises that I took at Oakland Cemetery toward the end of April. The previous posts are:

Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (1 of 10);
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (2 of 10);
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (3 of 10):
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (4 of 10);
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (5 of 10).

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As I explained in the last post, irises are often categorized across several dimensions, reflecting their botanical structures, shapes, or colors. The plants in this post would be considered white irises, with a finer distinction applied to the first six as “cream” because of the light orange tones distributed throughout their petals. They are all likely variants of Iris albicans — an iris commonly referred to as “white flag” (as in the quotation at the top of this post) or as the “cemetery iris.” As they’re often associated with both weddings and funerals or memorials, one would presumably refer to them as white flags for the former, but as cemetery irises for the latter. This is an example, of course, of how the common names of irises (and many other flowers and plants) are applied differently depending on context and their intended use.

We refer to them as “white irises” because that’s how we experience them visually — yet even these predominantly white flowers can reveal a lot more about irises and their genetic history. Note how those in the first six photos also demonstrate the presence of blue or blue-violet colors in some of the petals and, most obviously, in the unopened buds:

The presence of these blue-violet tones hints at the fact that these white irises have also been genetically engineered to produce light blue variants, something that’s possible because the blue tones are present at the cellular level in irises of this species. Even those that we classify as “pure white” like this one…

… show the potential to produce blue-violet colors: see how, at the throat of the flower just behind the beard, there is a rectangular swatch of the same blue tones that are present in the unopened buds I mentioned above. And further: when I work on these photos in Lightroom and pass Lightroom’s color picker over the standards or falls in photos like this one, Lightroom detects blue and purple throughout the flower petals.

The pixels the camera captures — which represent the accumulated color of thousands of the flower’s individual cells — include these blue-violet tones, almost as if there was a one-to-one relationship between the camera’s pixels and the flower’s cells. What our eyes visualize as white, in the case of these irises (and the color white in nature more generally), reflects how we see these colors and think of them based on color dominance. Yet closer inspection — especially when aided by a precision tool like a digital camera — reveals much more, and helps us see how it came about that the very name Iris was derived from the Greek word for “rainbow” with even white irises as repositories for all the colors in this rainbow. The camera has captured light reflected from many individual plant cells, and when it detects blue tones in apparently white areas, it’s recording the cumulative effect of pigments distributed across thousands of cellular structures.

As with other posts in this series, I photographed these irises in two locations at Oakland. The first six were from older or more historical sections of the property; the rest were among the newer plantings, arranged in clusters in an open acreage of irises. This location separation illustrates different ways in which irises have been used and developed over time, reflecting technological developments in the genetic and botanical history of these irises. The cream irises are directly connected to nearby memorials, whereas the pure white ones were planted to establish formal, contemplative displays. The white ones, by contrast, are a later genetic development, where most (but not all) of the color-producing pigments have been reduced significantly, so that the irises reflect their more pure white characteristics to our eyes, an effect that is emphasized by planting them in clusters producing multiple blooms instead of the more solitary plantings of the older irises.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

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From “The Fascinating Plicatas” in Garden Irises, Edited by L. F. Randolph:

“Of all the color groups in the tall bearded irises, one of the most fascinating is the plicata pattern. These are the irises with a light ground color, usually white, cream, or pale yellow, that is stippled, dotted, or edged with varying amounts of a darker color. Some of the most beautiful varieties are to be found among the plicatas, and some of the best specimens of perfectly branched stalks. Conversely, many of the plicatas have blossoms that lack substance, and while they are exquisite early in the morning, they are often semi-collapsed later in the day after they have been exposed to the full heat of the sun.

“Plicatas never fail to attract the gardening public and to intrigue the iris novice. Among iris fanciers they have fluctuated in popularity over the years and have never quite enjoyed the favor of some of the other color groups. This can be attributed partly to the fact that most of them lack the carrying power of solid colors and must be viewed at close range to be appreciated fully.”

From “Tall Bearded Irises: The Late Twentieth Century” in Irises: A Gardener’s Encyclopedia by Claire Austin:

“The 1960s and 1970s saw an increase in the size of Tall Bearded iris flowers, but no great advances in quality were made until the 1980s and 1990s. Among the most influential iris hybridizers in this new generation are Barry Blyth of Melbourne, Australia, and Keith Keppel of Salem, Oregon, who have been raising seedlings for 50 years. Their work and that of Joe Ghio in Santa Cruz, California, has increased the choice of flower shape, height, and colours available.

“Blyth and Keppel regularly visit each other and exchange both ideas and pollen. Blyth has registered more than 800 hybrids with the American Iris Society, including Tall Bearded irises and many median irises. His plants tend to be unconventional. Many are heavily ruffled and unusual in colours with extraordinary patterning. Keppel, working first in California, became known for his plicata irises….

“Over the years California has been home to many famous hybridizers, such as William Mohr, who worked around the beginning of the century, and Sydney Mitchell, who continued Mohr’s work. Around 1940 Jim Gibson started to hybridize for plicata-style Tall Bearded irises….”

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Hello!

This is the fifth of ten posts featuring photographs of irises that I took at Oakland Cemetery toward the end of April. The previous posts are:

Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (1 of 10);
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (2 of 10);
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (3 of 10):
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (4 of 10).

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Because of the enormous variety of iris shapes and colors, iris enthusiasts often describe them from different dimensions. Bearded irises, for example, are distinguished from beardless irises; their overall form and height may place them in categories like miniature, intermediate, or tall, whether they have beards or not; and their dominant colors may be used to describe them as white, yellow, purple, or orange, regardless of the presence of beards and regardless of their height.

“Plicata” — similarly — is an iris color designation; or, more accurately, a designation derived from the color patterns present on the standards and falls. That may seem confusing, but when you see examples like the ones I’ve included in the post, suddenly it’s quite clear that these irises exhibit the plicata pattern described in the first quote above: “irises with a light ground color, usually white, cream, or pale yellow, that is stippled, dotted, or edged with varying amounts of a darker color.” Unlike all the other irises in my series — where one color obviously dominates or the flowers contain a multitude of related colors — these irises exhibit the plicata color pattern just defined.

The photos below show two different developments in plicata patterning. The first seven — where a pattern of saturated purple swatches and dots is distributed heavily throughout the petals of both the standards and falls — represent an earlier period in the genetic history of irises, where breeders sought to produce irises that captured visual attention with sharp contrasts between bright colors. The remaining photos are a later development, where the plicata colors are more subtle, with softer transitions among the colors between the iris standards and what resembles watercolor brushing of shades of purple and blue throughout the falls. The standards — which our eyes register as white — actually contain flecks of very light blue and purple, more concentrated toward the base of each upright petal and gradually fading to white toward the edges. Even the beard colors show this carefully managed color transition: instead of a clear distinction between the beards and petals like in the first seven photos, these photos show a gradual distribution of yellow/orange color from the beard itself to the rest of the flower. I took the closeup photos toward the end of the galleries to make all these color transitions more visible; select one of them to view in a full-screen slideshow to better see what I mean.

One way to think about technological developments that enabled iris breeders to produce these elegant colors is by making an analogy to developments in digital photography, both developments occurring in the mid- to late-twentieth century. Consider a digital or mobile device camera that you might have had two decades ago: like any camera today, that device had certain capabilities that all cameras have, like the ability to focus on a subject and accurately capture an image in its storage. But the number of colors that cameras can capture has expanded significantly, which means that more recent cameras can render subtle variations among colors that their predecessors could not. Similarly, iris breeders learned how to genetically create new color combinations and manipulate their presence in iris flower petals with greater precision, enabling these irises to demonstrate delicate arrangements of colors that had previously not been possible. Luckily, our cameras — with their ability to capture more colors — can detect these precise color transitions and reproduce them accurately in photographs.

In the quotation at the top of this post, the author notes that “many of the plicatas have blossoms that lack substance, and while they are exquisite early in the morning, they are often semi-collapsed later in the day after they have been exposed to the full heat of the sun.” This difference is observable in my photographs, where the later photos show the “lack of substance” the quote describes. Especially in the standards, you can see through some of the petals. That translucence — combined with their near-white color — meant that these flowers photographed best in shady or overcast lighting, since they would reflect too much light (leading to a loss of delicate detail) into the camera’s sensor when the sun was out. The irises in the first seven photos, however, have thicker, opaque petals — so very little light passes through them, is instead reflected back to the camera, and they photograph well in both sunlight or shade.

The placement of the two kinds of irises I photographed mirrors their botanical and genetic history. Those first seven are all located in an older section of Oakland, where their presence is somewhat independent of memorial elements nearby. The remaining irises were added to the property more recently, where they were planted in conjunction with new concrete structures — some of which are visible in the photos — including headstones, urns, and rectangular markers. Planting irises so close to these structures reveals itself as an intentional design choice: the gray stone contrasts smoothly with the muted but bright colors of the irises, and the texture of the iris flowers and their leaves softens the appearance of the stark intersecting lines of the stone. This kind of placement represents ongoing developments in memorial gardens, where colors, contrasts, and textures are combined to assemble a space for both quiet contemplation and the preservation of memory.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

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From “Variegated Iris” in Iris by Fritz Kohlein:

“Variegated shrubs and plants are not without controversy. There are a few specialists and gardeners, for instance, who reject them because they feel that the cause of this mottling is frequently a plant virus. But the majority of gardeners appreciate these natural deviations which enliven and break up the otherwise monotonous greenness that often prevails outside the blooming season.

“Within the genus Iris there are a whole series of variegated species. This means that the sword-shaped leaves are more or less striped with white or a pale yellow, wherever chlorophyll is lacking. It’s possible that such an iris will produce a completely pale fan of leaves….The skillful use of variegated iris can make a big addition to any planting.

“In Tall Bearded Iris plantings we are limited to Iris pallida ‘Variegata’. Its yellowish-white variegation contrasts nicely with the grey-green background of its wide leaves. This iris from the southern Alps and the Adriatic has beautifully formed, pale lavender-blue blossoms which hug the bloom-stalk. It is not free branching. In larger iris plantings or when using newer varieties, this iris should be planted sparingly in clusters…”

From “Bend the Rain” in The Spiritual Teachings of Nature: Volume 2 by Chris Moody-Schulz:

Blades of grass eagerly peck their way
through the outer shell of earth’s womb
to begin their seasonal life as stage hands,
they paint a back-drop of green….

The slashing rain scissors this way and that
tilling the vernal ground
and allow wild flowers to seed and settle in,
nudging elbows in the crowded bed.

Robin and her red breasted friends
tweeze a wiggly meal,
determined spring rains
bend on rainbow winds.

I bend to touch the inaugural iris,
rising from her rhizome bed;
Dutch Blue, Purple Passion, Blueflag,
buhled from the magician’s hand.
I recall a saying carved into a driftwood bench,

“I Shall Always Love a Purple Iris”

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Hello!

This is the fourth of ten posts featuring photographs of irises that I took at Oakland Cemetery toward the end of April. The previous posts are:

Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (1 of 10);
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (2 of 10);
Nature’s Palette: Exploring Iris Colors, Their Culture, and Their History (3 of 10).

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The irises in the galleries below are Iris pallida ‘Variegata’ — “variegata” in this case referring to the striped or variegated leaves that give this plant its distinctive appearance. “Variegata” has more than one meaning in iris nomenclature — including its use in the separate species name Iris variegata — but in this case refers to the bicolor leaves, which are typically yellow and green but may be white and green in other variants.

These irises are closely related to those in my second post — Iris pallida — and the flowers of both plants show off colors in the blue, violet, and purple ranges quite effectively. Iris pallida’s flower structure is slightly more complex, individual flowers are sometimes a bit larger, and the beard coloration is a more saturated orange — but it’s easy to see how the two could be mistaken for each other, were it not for the smashing background of yellow and green stripes surrounding the Variegata cultivar. That striped background — genetically engineered over the centuries to become a permanent characteristic of this cultivar — will remain intact well into the summer, as later season flowers bloom around them, and photographers such as myself pose those newer arrivals with Variegata’s leaves behind them.

There’s only one planting of Iris pallida ‘Variegata’ at Oakland Cemetery, and these irises greet you from atop a wall at the intersection of two of Oakland’s main thoroughfares — one that bisects the property and one that leads around a curve and down a hill to a densely planted section embedded with memorial structures that I photographed previously (see Land of Azaleas and Roses).

Here’s that road, where, if you look closely, you can see Variegata’s leafy stripes near left-center, right where the road curves out of the scene.

And here’s the same photo cropped more closely so the irises are easier to see, and you might even recognize a couple of them in the following galleries.

Imagine yourself for a moment standing at the top of this hill, next to the irises, and observe how their presence at this intersection beckons you to head down the hill, while you take in the colorful plantings on one side and the memorial structures on both sides. This is actually one of my favorite parts of the garden, because of all the color and texture variations I can follow for a few hundred yards, and for how quiet it gets as you enter this section. And its plantings are so well organized that they vary from season to season, culminating in the appearance of early fall zinnias and mums, followed by the turn toward full autumn or early winter, where all the trees and shrubs in this section take on their fall color.

You might also see that there are only a few irises in bloom. Even though I photographed them on the same day as all the other irises in this series — most of which were about in the middle of their bloom cycle — the Variegata’s blooming cycle was almost complete, and the absence of even any desiccated blooms suggests (given our stormy April weather conditions) that its prime time had passed by a couple of weeks. So while I might have liked more photographs of this delightful variety, I instead took them from different angles and zoom levels, and also took advantage of varying lighting conditions by specifically shooting them in the shade, then returning to take a few more after the sun came out. Notice how the first seven photos — taken while the sun was absent — show the blue-violet colors more prominently than the rest of the photos — taken in full sun — where the sun’s yellow light emphasizes purple tones among flowers in the same planting.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

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