Tag: summer

From “Bearded Irises in Bed and Border” in Growing Irises by G. E. Cassidy:

“As a result of the dramatic developments in bearded irises… there is now available a fabulous range of flowers which must come as a revelation to those who still think of irises as ‘blue flags’….

“First as to colour — there are the irises of one colour, known as selfs, ranging from white to black through the rainbow with dark, light and pastel shades of each tint. Then there are the ‘amoenas’ with white or near-white standards and coloured falls, the ‘neglectas’ with light-blue standards and purple-toned falls, the ‘plicatas’ with light background overlaid with veining and stitching of a darker colour and the ‘variegatas’ with yellow standards and red-brown falls….

“Nowadays there are infinite variations of these basic themes with every sort of colour combination and with often brilliantly coloured and contrasting beards. In form and size, too, the bearded irises have changed almost beyond recognition and it is a far cry from the old drooping falls and floppy standards to the wide, flaring and ruffled falls and domed standards of the modern [tall bearded irises].

“Although suited to many applications in the garden, the bearded irises are seen at their dramatic and dazzling best when massed together in formal beds or borders. Here the range of colours can be seen to advantage, use can be made of variations in height to produce a graded effect and of the differences in flowering times to give a long flowering period….”

From “Purple Irises” in The Collected Poems by William Kean Seymour:

These purple flags in fancy seem to me
Delicate dames with their attendant squires —
Green-garbed and slim — who do their just desire:
Softly and well, and worship silently;
Or they are pools in a sun-smitten sea,
Deep hid in quietude of mirrored fires,
Decked with rich weeds and iridescent spires,
Shells and smooth stones and the anemone….

---

Hello!

This is the second of three posts with images of purple-toned irises from Oakland Cemetery that I photographed earlier this year. The first post is Iris Purpleness (1 of 3).

Of the four irises featured in the three-post series, this post includes these two…

… as a way of showing the difference between a single-colored self iris (on the left), and a bitone iris where the standards are a lighter version of the same colors in the falls. This bitone also produces a very large flower, something evident from the fact that I took the two photos above from approximately the same distance and focal length.

The bitone’s translucent standards let light pass through, which results in colors shifting between blue and violet depending on how much sun was present when I snapped the photos, as well as what direction the light was coming from. While it’s possible to color-correct them in Lightroom so that the standards colors match in all the final photos, it’s more accurate to try and respect the lighting conditions. One editing trick I use here is to adjust white balance so that the surrounding green leaves — rather than the flower — are rendered as consistently as possible across all the photos. Since white balance adjustments affect the whole photo, this lets the purple colors fall naturally into the ranges that would have been present at the time, regardless of how lighting conditions varied. Green on opaque leaves like these is a color we intuitively recognize as accurate or inaccurate, so it can be used as a visual anchor for correcting white balance and ensuring that the color relationships throughout the image are accurate.

From my observations, the bitone iris produces plants whose height is about the same for each stem, and it would probably be classified as a medium or intermediate bearded iris. The self iris, on the other hand, produces stems of varying heights — as the photos illustrate — often in clusters where some short stems surround one or two taller ones, as in this photo where it’s earning its designation as a tall bearded iris.

Its flowers — even the shorter ones — exceed the height of nearly all its leaves, a convenience for any photographer who wants to focus on the flowers and leave out the leaves. Such heights also make this iris suitable for use as shown in my photos: positioned against a stone wall and in front of shrubs to create horizontal and vertical visual interest with colors and shapes that both complement and contrast with the landscaped surroundings.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

From “The Role of Irises in Our Gardens” in Magic of Irises by Barbara Perry Lawton:

“The magic of irises in our gardens lies in their singular beauty, their linear quality and the ease with which they can be grown. The glory of the flowers and the brilliances and subtleties of their many colors endear the plants to gardeners…. Few perennials bring as much reliable color to garden beds and borders. Few are so adaptable to a wide range of soil and environmental conditions….

“Irises have grown in American gardens since the earliest of times and probably came to the Colony of Virginia with Englishwomen who arrived in 1619. The Persian iris is in the old plant list for the governor’s garden when Williamsburg was first planned in the seventeenth century. The bearded irises from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, commonly called the German irises, crossed the Atlantic and were welcome introductions to American gardens wherever the colonists settled. The long congruent history of irises with humankind adds to the appeal of these old favorites of the perennial world….

“In form, irises range all the way from the single-stemmed grace of the bulbous Dutch iris to the well-known spear sheaves of the bearded irises to the thick clumps of the Siberian irises. [There] are all of the gradations of form in between these as well….

“As to flower form, again the range is wide. The standard petals may be upright or spreading. The falls may point downward or spread out like a saucer. The falls may have beards, crests, or neither. The size of the flowers may be miniature or larger than a tea saucer. Some iris flowers are heavily ruffled while others have no ruffles at all. The variety of flower forms is wide indeed, offering something for every taste.

“When it comes to color and patterns of color, the genus Iris is hard to beat. The flowers, named for the Greek goddess of the rainbow, fulfill the promise of that name better each year as both professional and amateur iris breeders come up with new variations on the theme. Colors in irises run from the whites through yellows and oranges to pinks to blues, lavenders, purples and purple-reds. Pure geranium red is the only color that is not in the iris palette. There are the palest of pastels and the most robust rich shades imaginable. There are bicolored, spotted, blotched and speckled iris flowers. Some iris flowers have standards and falls of different colors. It is difficult to think of a color or color combination that you can’t find among the irises.”

From “Reaching the Audience” by Pattiann Rogers in Heart of the Flower: Poems for the Sensuous Gardener by Sondra Zeidenstein:

We will start with a single blue dwarf iris
Appearing as a purple dot on a hairstreak
Butterfly seen in a distant pine barrens and proceed
Until we end with a single point of purple spiraling
Like an invisible wing in the center of the flower
Making fact.

We will investigate a stand of blue flags crimsoned
By the last sun still showing over the smoky edges
Of the ravine and illustrate in sequence the glazing
Of those iris by the wet gold of an early dawn.

We will survey a five-mile field of purple iris
Holding bristle-legged insects under the tips
Of their stamens and measure the violet essence
Gathered at the bases of their wings and devote
One section to a molecule of iris fragrance
Preserved and corked in a slender glass.

There will be a composition replicating the motion
Of the iris rolling sun continually over its rills
And another for the stillness of the iris sucking ivory
Moonlight through its hollows making ivory roots.

There will be photographs in series of the eyes
Of a woman studying the sepals of an iris
In a lavender vase and a seven-page account of the crested
Iris burning at midnight in the shape of its flame….

---

Hello!

This is the first of three posts with new images of irises from Oakland Cemetery that I photographed earlier this year. For these three posts, I’ve assembled those irises whose colors fall in the blue to purple ranges, whose forms and color variations are reflected in both of the excerpts I included above. I titled this series “Iris Purpleness” because I didn’t know “purpleness” was a word until today, and I thought it sounded funny. It makes sense though (“redness” is a word, after all), and it even has a plural form — “purplenesses” — that I encourage you to try using in a sentence. 🙂

Here are the four varieties appearing in this three-part series. The top two would likely be classified as self irises — irises whose standards and falls produce colors in the same, or nearly the same, ranges. The first one demonstrates mostly blue with purple undertones, and the second reverses that color relationship, emphasizing a rich purple/violet color with blue undertones (and a small blue beard, which is atypical for the irises I find at Oakland). The iris on the right has petals that are quite thick and textured, producing a ruffled edge and a quality of reflecting its rich colors into the camera. As I was assembling these galleries, I puzzled for a while about why I never photographed the dwarf irises in the background of that second scene, but didn’t come up with an answer. Weird how something like that happens.

The iris on the bottom left is one I encounter every year at Oakland, whose colors demonstrate that of a bitone iris, a description that applies when an iris’s standards (which are large and prominent in this iris) are a lighter hue of the same color as its falls. In other words, this iris’s falls are a dark purple/violet, and its standards are a lighter shade of the same color combination. In this case, the standards are also thinner in texture and more translucent, so more light passes through them and makes those standards appear to glow, especially when light passes through them at an angle — which it did at the time I took these pictures.

Irises like those in the bottom right photograph strike me as a most intriguing color combination, where the petals display blends of dark blue, dark purple, and — especially in the unopened buds — a color that is close to pure black. Black in irises is both fascinating and visually contestable, as what we see (or what the camera captures) as black is difficult to differentiate as that color, or as the absence of color caused by shadows or contrasting lighting. That is, what we see as black might be very dark purple or very dark blue (or even very dark red), or it might be that plus lack of light on what we’re observing. I approached this topic a couple of years ago — see Black Iris Variations and Observations from 2024 — where I now think I overemphasized the black tones in these same irises over their subtle blue, purple, and black color relationships.

If you’d like to see other examples of black in irises, take a look at the Historic Iris Gallery on the Historic Iris Preservation Society website, and set the gallery’s filters for Standard Colors or Fall Colors to “Black/Near Black.” The gallery photos will include irises that do indeed look like they’re black or very dark gray, but will also show how many that get referred to as black are similarly colored to those I photographed with highly saturated purple, blue, and red tones that visually (or photographically) are so close to pure black that they’re named that way. Two of the irises from that gallery in particular — Night Ruler and Black Watch — are a lot like the purple, blue, and black color blends I find at Oakland, though of course I have no way to assign those variant names with certainty.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

From “The Iris in Heraldry” in Irises: A Romantic History with a Guide to Cultivation by Susan Berry:

“The heraldic fleur-de-lis almost certainly derives from the iris flower. According to John Guillim, in A Display of Heraldrie, published in 1610, the fleur-de-lis ‘is in Latine called Iris.’ Its origins derive apparently from the time of Clovis I, King of the Franks in the sixth century AD, whose army was being pursued by the Goths and was trapped by a bend in the river at Cologne. Clovis caught sight of yellow irises growing far out in the water, and realized that the river had to be shallow enough at that point for his army to cross to safety. Having escaped, he showed his debt to the iris by adopting the flower as his emblem. In the twelfth century, the emblem was revived by the French king, Louis VII, who adopted it as his own during the Crusades, whereupon it was christened the ‘Fleur de Louis,’ or fleur-de-lis.

“According to [Buckner] Hollingsworth in his Flower Chronicles, so potent a symbol of the monarchy had the fleur-de-lis become in France by the eighteenth century that the Revolutionaries, in 1789, set out to obliterate it, chipping it off buildings and tearing it down from draperies. Men were guillotined for no more than wearing a fleur-de-lis on their clothes or jewellery….

“The iris has also been called the flower of chivalry: ‘a sword for its leaf, and a lily for its heart,’ and the three points of the fleur-de-lis are reputed to stand for faith, wisdom, and valor.”

From “Iris” in Flower Chronicles by Buckner Hollingsworth:

“The earliest appearance of the iris… was in a serious role because the first perfumes were offerings to the gods. Since dried iris root flung on a fire gives forth a pleasant odor, it is more than likely that the iris figured in some of the sacred burnt offerings of primitive times. Be that as it may, a number of men and women very early failed to see why the gods should monopolize all sweet scents. In Egypt, Persia and Greece perfumes of one sort or another were known and valued from very early periods. Theophrastus mentions iris among the plants used for perfume in Athens and down in Corinth an iris water called Irinen, which had the fragrance of violets, was distilled from the rhizomes.

“This peculiar property of orris root should be emphasized. Its odor is not that of iris but of violets. Until the synthetic ionone was discovered… all violet powders and perfumes were based on orris root….

“A second property of orris root is no less important. It has the quality of being able to strengthen the odors of other perfumed substances. Thus, as a fixative, it has for centuries held a place in the making of powders and perfumes.

“When civilization had staggered to its feet after the fall of Rome, during the ensuing Dark Ages, all through the feudal period, in the Renaissance, and up to comparatively modern times, orris root has played a major role in helping to make social intercourse bearable. Clothes, even gloves, were soaked in perfume.”

---

Hello!

This is the second of two posts with images of intensely colored yellow irises that I photographed in late spring at Oakland Cemetery. The first post is The Yellowest Yellow Irises (1 of 2).

In this post, we get a closer look at some of the flowers’ petals and their beards, and again get to observe the interplay of the plants’ leaves, the varying forms they take, and their surroundings, as well as the shades of green and blue that are reflected by those leaves.

As I can only speculate on this iris’s specific species name, I decided to dig up some historical excerpts about irises in history that are applicable to many variants, including these. The first excerpt explains the connection between irises and the fleur-de-lis as a coat of arms or symbol of heraldry, while acknowledging that this “almost certainty” includes competing narratives that lilies — not irises — were the inspiration for such symbols. When researching irises or lilies, it’s common to encounter variations of both themes, at least in part because there was a lot of cultural overlap between the two plant families whose members flipped between them as botanical exploration advanced toward greater scientific accuracy. A consistent recurring detail, though, is that the irises Clovis encountered were most likely yellow Iris pseudacorus, commonly known as the Yellow Flag Iris, or Water Iris, based on its preference for growing in the vicinity of (or in) swamps or bogs. While it’s considered invasive in some regions, its better story is that its ancient landscape presence likely means that its yellow colors found their way into subsequent iris generations and variations.

The second excerpt describes the uses of perfume derived from orris root, introducing them then anchoring in pre-modern periods when personal hygiene had a different kind of emphasis than you might be accustomed to, especially when running water was a luxury in private homes. Overpowering orris-based perfumes helped make social interactions “bearable” — presumably because… well, do I really need to explain?

Thanks for taking a look!

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---