Magenta
[V]
What's This?
Full Description
TB 30″ M R7D
From the Cayeux et LeClerc catalog for 1927: “As its name implies this variety is of a novel, unique and quite distinct colour amongs(t) Irises. The flowers are of good shape and of long duration. When, for the first time, we saw the first flowers expending [sic] a bright self pinky-red, it suggested (to) us the appropriate name depicting so well the unusual colour of this most interesting Iris.”Height 2½ ft.”
From Quality Gardens catalog for 1930: “M. 39″ V.F. M. Cayeux is a very patriotic Frenchman, and he named this iris for the battle of Magenta which was fought June 4, 1859 in which the French under the personal leadership of Napoleon III won a great victory over the Austrians. He named his iris Solferino after another French victory in the same war.
Magenta in English, however, is the name of a color which is hated and detested by all gardeners, a purple-red which is a jarring note with any other color, and so M. Cayeux made a very unfortunate mistake.
This is a wonderfully beautiful flower with a color absolutely unique. The color is a very bright pinky red which appeals to everyone. It was one of the sensations of our garden last spring. The flowers are large and of splendid shape, and the plant is a very strong, vigorous grower. Mr. Perry Murrell rated this to the English Iris Society at 91 and said that it was a glorious and most distinct colored Iris… ”
CM SNHF 1927, AM RHS 1934.
Provenance: Image 1 from Salmon Creek Iris Gardens, the collection of Bruce Filardi, AIS Convention 2006.