From “Iris: The Flower of the Rainbow” in Flowers in History by Peter Coats:
“Iris was the Goddess of the Rainbow, and in Greek mythology she is hardly distinguishable from the natural phenomenon itself. On occasions she seems to have acted as messenger from the gods, as a link between Olympus and mortals below, in that she touched both sky and earth….
“Iris, the flower, may surely be said to have borrowed its various colors from the sky. There are few iris in cultivation which are, in color, different to the tints the sky can show, and there are few skies, of untroubled blue, thundery purple, fresh primrose or dying pink, which might not find their colors reflected in the petals of the modern iris….”
“Biologists surmise that elaborate patterning in flowers like the iris probably results in response to pollinators. It’s hard to imagine what iris patterns look like to bees or other insects…. The next time you’re in the garden, just imagine what a bee thinks.”
“The bearded iris gains its name from the line of thick hairs that emerges from the throat of the flower. These hairs form a long, furry caterpillar towards the back of the falls, and their purpose is to guide insects, such as bees, towards the pollen. Bearded irises are the largest group with the greatest number of cultivated varieties. They are also the most popular group of irises for garden use.
“In the wild, bearded irises grow in an area that stretches from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia and from the Arabian Peninsula north to southern Russia. They usually are found in a sunny place where the soil is poor and well drained. The flowers, which always have large petals, are borne on stiff stems above broad, sword-like, and usually soft green leaves. These form a handsome clump that is invaluable in a garden.”
“The citrusy range of tones we call orange makes my mouth water. Orange bearded irises sparkle and gleam on warm spring days, the perfect show for a mid-afternoon stroll through the garden with a mimosa….
“The history of orange bearded irises… traces back to breeding efforts with yellows and pinks, work that was by no means easy. Some of the first orange-colored irises, blends of off-colors or faint allusions to orange by present definitions, lacked good floral substance and architecture. Some of the best examples of these new colors came from crosses involving median irises… and early dwarfs… coupled with further line breeding and use of apricot-colored irises that were the by-products of pink breeding. Many breeders have risen to the challenge of developing orange irises with distinctive colors, good form and substance, and sound growing habits.”
Hello! More irises!
This is the first of two posts featuring irises from Oakland Cemetery’s gardens whose pink, peach, and orange colors caught my eye, so I gathered them together.
Like many irises, these all have beards, but don’t need to shave. I learned recently about the evolution of the iris’s beard from a delightful documentary called Plant Odyssey, which takes you on a tour through the culture and history of four influential flowers: roses, waterlilies, tulips, and irises. The documentary describes how the iris modified its own structure to develop beards in coevolution with pollinating bees, and how the shapes and colors of the beards are visually interesting to the bees, but also help dislodge pollen.
Those irises producing beards that attracted more bees were more frequently pollinated, giving them a selective advantage — and leading them to produce longer and more brightly colored beards, in order to — you guessed it! — attract even more bees. You can read a little about how this process works on Wikipedia (at this link) — but if you have a Discovery Plus subscription (either from Discovery Plus or Amazon Video), the documentary is a very compelling watch.
“The great season for tall bearded irises begins in late April and early May in places such as northern Mississippi, two weeks later in Washington, and progressively later farther north. Fortunately irises have not lost their fragrance through many generations of breeding, and every iris grower knows and revels in the variety of scents. Some are like sweet peas, some like ripe grapes, and some have an indefinable sweetness not like anything else….
“They like full sun. They bloom magnificently in slight shade, with six hours of sun a day, but not so freely as in full sun. They like rich soil, preferably a sandy loam, though clay loam, even acid clay loam, does perfectly well provided water does not stand on the plants for hours after a rain….
“The spring after planting there will usually be one bloom stalk, and the second year there will be five, say, and in the third year perhaps ten or twelve. They are best dug up after the third year, divided and replanted using three young vigorous rhizomes set a foot apart in a triangle, the fans all pointing the same direction.”
“Frail and delicate in appearance, the Algerian [iris] is really a tough which flourishes best in a sort of rubbish heap of its own. If you plant it in rich soil, and allow it so much as to catch sight of a lump of manure, its crop of leaves will be indeed extravagant, but blossoms there will be none. But if you plant it in contemptible rubbish such as brick-bats and gravel, with the especial addition of any old mortar rubble which the builders may have left over, and which is rich in lime, you will get a crop of flowers… to fill every glass you may have available.”
I’m fairly sure that the last six photos are those of an Algerian Iris (officially, Iris unguicularis), and it was growing in conditions similar to those described by Vita Sackville-West above: next to a crumbly stone wall and rooted in a combination of old wood chips, gravel, grass, and sand. There were only a handful of irises like this in the gardens — and I was glad to have captured them, as they are probably gone by now.
