as they increase, and of course my own introductions, and the iris my friends wish 
to have me introduce for them. I shall always try to weed out the poor, SO you May 
depend on my judgment. Our introductions we want you to come to know as dis- 
tinct and fine iris---otherwise you will lose faith in my opinion. 
This year our list of introductions is quite long. Several of these iris I have 
hesitated to introduce, but the garden visitors want them, and | dislike selling 
an iris with a number for a name means so much more, therefore I am introducing 
them at a modest price with names and they will be srown and liked for their 
beauty, and their faults will not be seen by those who will see their beauty. But 
I will tell you their faults (even I like them still) and you may want them anyway. 
Getting back to my “Tove, Hybridizing. We cannot say fora certainty 
just where the good ones will come or where some unusual break will appear. 
Clara Rees, the breeder of Snow Flurry crossed Purissima (a Tetraploid) with 
pollen of Thais (a Diploid) in the hopes of getting a ruffled lavender or lavender- 
whites one seed was born and one seedling grew: Snow Flurry, and although 
by standards this iris has faults it has such charm and personality, just to;see ue 
is to love’ it. Mary Rich Lyon x Midwest Gem gave me a shell pink seedling 
44-67 and a big ruffled yellow that was named Gold Ruffles and introduced last 
year. Knowing Gold Ruffles to have this pink sister | used it as pod parent fora 
cross planned for pinks but using another yellow seedling from Alice Harding x 
Dr. Loomis’ Type Dore (yellow S. white F. bordered yellow) a seedling of Dr. 
Loomis’ original Sea Shell, and a pink seedling bloomed---a simply huge pale 
pink with domed standards and wide flaring falls---the substance so heavy each 
bloom lasted 5 and 6 days even in heat or rain, but the “darned” thing had no 
increase and | knew it was a ‘lost chord” so I set seed on it by my deepest pink 
(Pink Formal) and harvested a crop of about 150 seeds, so perhaps this flower 
did not bloom in vain and maybe one of its children will prove as good, but it 
was an iris one dreams about. 
Last January 4th | spent part of the day with Mrs. Fitzpatrick of San 
Diego (the breeder of Creamo) a lady who has been breeding iris some twenty 
five years. It was a delightful experience. Sometimes our iris friends have as 
much charm as the flowers we have taken to our hearts, and surely these friends 
make our lives much richer and happier always, of course, with the cream of their 
hybridizing. On January 6th and 7th | spent time with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas 
Craig of Los Angeles. Anyone from a snow-bound state would relish such a treat. 
Tom (everyone calls him Tom) grows “everything in the flora world. There 
were hundreds of camellias of every size, shape and color, fields of rare daffodils, 
and of course acres of iris. Drifts of China Maid everywhere, and everywhere in 
bloom. Many of Tom's seedlings were blooming and from this off-season bloom 
I could see he has some fine things which we will all enjoy growing. Tom has a 
great love for the Oncocyclus species and their hybrids. His work along this line 
looks astounding when one considers the difficulty of their breeding. A lovely 
blue opened the day I left, a cross of Mountain Sky x Chivalry; wide and ruffled 
in parts. He had a seedling with some sort of extra petaloid -hanging from the 
crest, just below the beard, of each fall. So you see the surface has just been 
scratched. New breaks will come, and who knows the do-dads, the gadgets, the 
doubling and the stream-lining we may yet accomplish. 
Some breeders are working for a green iris. | have had several quite green, 
and up to 1945 discarded them not fully realizing their possibilities. In 1946 there 
bloomed a green-chartreuse-white from a cross of Snow Flurry x 44-1: (Gene- 
vieve Serouge x Mount Cloud) which I have since registered Greenglow and | 
phe 
