Canadian Iris Society cis newsletter - e-clipse technologies inc.

Iris polakki and Friends
By Harold Crawford
One cold day in January I took a friend to a small local Scottish store. She
comes from Britain and shops at this store for special British food items
not carried by the regular grocery stores. Looking around the shop while
waiting I came across some colorful English china mugs, most of them
with floral designs. The mug that took my eye was one with the painting of
a fascinating violet-colored iris which didn’t look familiar to me. Printed on the outside
of its handle were the words Iris polakki. I’d never heard of Iris polakki but in the dead of
winter we are subject to anything that says “iris” so I bought it and I took it home. That
little incident led me to an interesting search for more information.
Molly Price doesn’t mention this species in her “The Iris Book” so I went on to find
in “The World of Irises” that this little iris is from northwestern Iran and is a member of
the Oncocyclus group. As you will know they are commonly known as oncos, and they
all come from an area of the world that extends from southern Israel and Jordan, north
into Turkey, northern Iraq and Iran, and as eastward into the Caucasus Mountains. Two of
the characteristics which distinguish the oncos are (1) a white collar on the embryo end
of the seed and (2) they have single flowers on a stem—the stems can be 3½ to 18 inches
tall. Apparently oncos are very hard to classify. Are they a species or are they natural
hybrids? No doubt the current science of bar coding plants and animals—an interesting
development of our time—will eventually be able to sort them out.
When we look at onchos it is inevitable that we go on to examine the resources of
The Aril Society International devoted to arils and arilbreds. This society is one of the
AIS’s cooperating societies. In viewing some of these spectacular colors and forms, it
makes me wish that I were growing some of them. The warming of our climate makes
them even more appealing. I’ve always felt that they were too tender for our climate but
some CIS members certainly grow them, Walker Ross and Ron Shaw among others.
I’ve spent most of my iris time with the common bearded iris groups so it is a revelation
to find just how many fantastic colors and forms exist in the Arils and Arilbreds. It’s a
whole new world out there. The Aril Society has a new illustrated checklist. It can be
viewed on the Internet and is called The Aril Society’s International Illustrated Official
Checklist 2009. A great deal of work and dedication went into creating it. It is a gold
mine and a color blast. All hybrids are listed alphabetically by name. There you will find
Walker Ross’s Walker Ross introduced by Chuck Chapman in 1998. The TB Spinning
Wheel is one of the irises Walker used in the breeding.
Back to that mug with the painting of Iris polakii, native of the Persian world. On the
bottom of the mug was stamped “Roy Kirknam, England, and Fine Bone China 2006”.
I was curious as to how the decision was made to display such a relatively unknown
iris (to me at least) on their chinaware, so I sent an e-mail off to ask that question. I
was pleasantly surprised in two days to receive a reply from Ken Kirkham, Managing
Director of the firm at Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire. His answer was “the actual iris was
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Canadian Iris Society Newsletter