White Parasol
[V]
What's This?
Full Description
TB 36″ M
From Lloyd Austin’s Rainbow Gardens catalog for 1958: “From high up in the Colorado Rockies, near the Continental divide, where temperatures of -25° have been recorded, comes this magnificent flat white Iris that has caused amateurs and experts alike to exclaim with evident rapture. A huge snow-white flower often up to 9”, that flattens out much like a white parasol; hence its name. Displayed as a guest Iris at 1957 American Iris Society Convention, Memphis Tennessee, so many Iris fanciers are already aware of its spontaneous appeal. Unlike most of the older flats this would seem to be a tetraploid, judging by its vigor and great size. At one time it was called ‘Flat Top’; you may know it by this name.
Will be in constant demand as a corsage flower, and for use indoors in large flat containers. Substance heavy. Pollen variable, sometimes good; sets seed, so will be used by hybridizers everywhere. Praised by such eminent Irisarians as Tell Muhlestein, Dr. P.A. Loomis, Mel Wallace, all of whom recommend its introduction. Now it is making its debut, ready for YOUR appraisal. Planned as a $25.00 introduction, but as it is partially inconstant and variable when poorly established, or at end of season, it is being released, while supply lasts, at only $10.00.
Convention Report in Bulletin 146 by former AIS President Jesse Wills: “The most unusual Iris I saw in Memphis was White Parasol … a wide flat flower where standards laid over flat in a regular orderly fashion so effect was not like a tall bearded Iris at all, but was rather suggestive of a big exotic Japanese type.”
(Spanish Peaks X Violet Symphony).