290 
T HE GARDEN M A GAZINE 
June, 1917 
My Hobby in Raising New Irises 
GRACE STURTEVANT S““„ 
[Editor’s Note: — Miss Sturtevant' s exhibits of seedling Iris of her own crossing have 
attracted much favorable comment at the exhibitions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and 
have been given special awards. In this note she explains fully her method of operation and opens 
up a field of speculative interest for the enthusiastic gardener .] 
T HE hybridization of Iris is a field 
in which little has been attempted 
here in America, yet is such a fascin- 
ating one that I should like others 
to realize, from my success, what they might 
do for themselves and how they might parti- 
cipate in the joy and anticipation of creating 
new varieties even if of little real merit. 
The possible combinations of delightful colors 
are endless; often so unexpected and remark- 
able as to be quite bewildering. 
The Bearded Iris of our gardens have 
many points in their favor as the subject 
of such a hobby. They are hardy, withstand- 
ing both winter cold and summer drought; 
are sure to bloom and do not ordinarily pro- 
duce seed unless crossed by hand; the seed- 
lings are large enough to handle easily and 
can be best planted and grown in the open 
without troublesome frames or greenhouses. 
This enables any one with but three clumps (or 
only one if it is of the right kind and he can 
borrow a few stamens from a neighbor) to 
make a beginning. The time, too, before 
we know the result is not as long as you might 
think; perhaps a third (or under better cul- 
tural conditions a far larger proportion) of 
the seedlings will bloom two years from making 
the cross. After that you may have another 
crop coming along each season; there need be 
no break in the succession and the only dis- 
turbing question will be, “Ivhere shall I put 
the new seedlings” and “what shall I do 
with the ones I do not want to keep?” 
I make the cross in the garden, record it 
in pencil and pin the folded record about the 
stalk. This I find better than tags and it 
will last until the seeds are ripe. At first I 
covered the crossed bloom, but it seems un- 
necessary as most of the blossoms last only 
one day and the bees, for whose especial con- 
venience the Iris flower was made according 
to some botanists, in my garden crawl in and 
out at the bottom of the falls without touching 
the stigma. I remove the stamens carefully 
before they are open and at once thoroughly 
cover the stigmatic lip with pollen from the 
anther of the bloom I am using; for, as with 
other plants, it has been found that the first 
coating of pollen is the effective one. 
The pods may be picked when green quite a 
time before they burst open: if the seeds have 
turned brown, they are ripe enough: take 
them out of the pod, dry in an airy place 
and then plant in your seed bed out-of-doors. 
A layer of leaves is a desirable protection but 
remove it early as the seeds usually germinate 
about the time the parent plants are starting 
into growth. A bed should have been pre- 
pared in the fall and as you see an inch of 
seedling leaf you can transfer it at once in the 
place where it is to grow and bloom. Few of 
m v seedlings have survived if not transplanted. 
The little plants are put out in rows about 
a foot apart as they will have bloomed before 
they become crowded, later a shallow culti- 
vation to keep down the weeds is all that is 
required. When a fertilizer is needed I have 
found bonemeal as good as anything, but lime 
is as necessary to these as it is to the well- 
being of all the Bearded Iris. 
I mentioned before the surprising results 
from various combinations. This means not 
only that every pod is different but that al- 
most every seed produces a different combina- 
tion of color or other characteristics. For 
instance from I. palhda dalmatica X aurea 
(germanica) cross I raised eleven plants of 
which four are what I call “palaurea,” three 
delightful, clean combinations of lavender 
and yellow of a medium tone and the other 
with a charming predominance of yellow. 
The rest were much the lavender of pallida; 
there was no clear yellow, though aurea was 
dominant in growth throughout. 
1 hen again I had quite a surprise when 
forty-nine seedlings from two pods of I. 
pallida X Jeanne d’Arc (plicata) cross gave me 
all blue-lavenders of varying shades with the 
exception of one dwarf gray-white. And in a 
cross between an insignificant form of I. 
amoena (white standards and purple falls) 
and Iris King the result though lovely, was 
most unexpected, for the purple appeared in 
all the falls and the standards were respec- 
tively, clear lavender, peach, fawn, and a 
yellow with an olive cast, while only one re- 
sembled the parents much in growth. 
I shall choose but one more example from 
the many crosses recorded, almost all of which 
have resulted in effective garden plants. 
Jeanne d’Arc and Comte de St. Clair are both 
plicatas with a delicate fringe of blue and 
pink-lavender respectively; these crossed with 
Oriflamme gave very’ diverse results; nine 
plants in all, five from the Count de St. Clair 
pod were whites similar to Jeanne d’Arc and 
the four from the Jeanne d’Arc pod included 
a clear light lavender, one pink-lavender, and 
two similar to Oriflamme, all four unusually 
large. 
These few examples show the uncertainty 
of the results that may be expected from the 
appearance of the flowers used. Color seems 
to be the least reliable of the Iris character- 
istics; it might be called almost fluid, com- 
bining or being overlaid, like water color 
washes, one upon another, or appearing in 
wonderful penciling or venation. This feature 
of color is of first interest to the beginner but 
as the work progresses, he recognizes new 
qualities, new points of excellence, new aims, 
and his enthusiasm is continually increasing 
and expanding. 
Iris raising is a delightful hobby and I hope 
that many' will ride it for I consider the Iris as 
worthy of a society' of its own as many' of the 
other flowers and a society is only one way to 
meet and consult with other enthusiasts. 
Where the cross is made in June and the 
resulting seeds are planted in late August or 
early September many of them will germin- 
ate the following April (although there is an 
instance on record where hybrid Iris seed 
lay dormant 18 years, I think two y'ears will, 
in the open ground account for most of the 
seeds). Perhaps a third of these seedlings 
transplanted to a well prepared bed will, under 
favorable conditions, bloom the following 
spring and practically all will flower the next 
year, i.e., some will bloom two years from mak- 
ing the cross, or one year from germination. 
RECENT BOOKS 
Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. Edited by L. H. 
Bailey (The Macmillan Co.. New York. Six vols.: illus- 
trated; $36.00). 
Five years of work is brought to a successful 
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of American Horticulture, it is at the same 
time an entirely different work, larger and of 
wider scope. 
The Standard Cyclopedia comprises 3,639 
pages and 4,056 illustrations in the text, and 
120 whole-page illustrations, some of which 
are in color. The present work includes not 
only' the plants sold in the L nited States and 
Canada, but also those that are actually 
grown in collections of specialists; and is in 
general a presentation of plants generally used 
and referred to in horticulture and gardening, 
whether they are actually found in trade lists 
or not. 
1 he large army of experts and specialists, 
who have contributed services as collaborators, 
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pedia, as a whole, may be fairly said to rep- 
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deal with plants and plant materials, but it 
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the number of more than 3,500 articles. And 
a new feature in this work as compared with the 
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total number of Latin plant names accounted 
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of what is known as the “Vienna Code” have 
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conservativeness in the matter of names since 
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. . . In this Cy'dopedia the interest is 
in stability of names rather than in priority of 
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A supplement in the concluding volume is a 
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systematic effort of those most interested in 
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form names for the same plant all over the 
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sistently. The fact that there are some 
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