Coincidence?

The prospect of having not just a hybrid between Beardless and Bearded, but having TWO of them is enough to make anyone question what they think they're seeing. Top this off with the fact that both plants will set seed and anyone would wonder.



It's entirely possible that, by coincidence, 2 volunteer SDBs have decided to pop up exactly where the Siberian looking seedlings from Weisenmotte were planted in the beardless seedling bed.

A number of other things could also be chalked up to simple coincidence...

Both of these volunteers are clearly siblings just as the Weisenmotte seedlings were.

The leaves of the volunteers appear to be classic SDB type except that the color in natural light is just a tiny bit "off". I still haven't found any Bearded in any class with the same color of leaves. (Of course, I haven't compared every Bearded iris in existance either.)

Fertility isn't good for either seedling unless they're under stress, but the same could be said for a lot of SDBs.

The rhizomes appear to be bearded but at the far edge of what SDBs typically look like. The rhizomes are small and where connected to older rhizomes, are extremely narrow and long. The same is sometimes seen in rambling species beardeds but the W seedlings do not ramble and instead form tight clumps with the new fans pushing up out of the ground at the edge of the clumps. The presence of this type of rhizome could also be coincidence. For comparison, 'Beauty Mark' is shown on the left with W1 center and W2 on the right

  

The seeds of W1 often show deformities... again, coincidence may be at work since any number of factors can influence seed appearance.


This is the entire crop. One seed germinated.


Though these look quite a bit like bearded seeds should, of note is the slight "neck" where W2's seeds attached to the pod. (This was also visible on seeds from Weisemotte X IDSON seedlings.)

The texture of the pods is "off" as well, but not enough to be clearly anything other than what might be seen in SDBs and might be due to the fact that the walls of the pods are more papery than what's typical (but still not out of bounds) for SDBs.

The amount of increase, especially that of W1, is exceptionally high, but there are a number of SDBs which also increase wildly.

In spite of leaf spot, both plants prefer good soil and ample water, but a number of SDBs also grow better under these conditions.

Whether or not these are hybrid, it'll be interesting to take the lines as far as I can...