Intermediate Bearded Iris 'Sangreal'

Intermediate Bearded Iris 'Sangreal'
Iris

In the late 1930’s my son-in-law’s Grandmother was given a yellow Iris for her new home in Little Falls New Jersey, by a relative who was in the landscaping business. About six years ago, when Grandma was moving out of her house, my daughter transplanted a clump to my home in Nutley New Jersey. The Iris turned out to be a prolific re-bloomer and is one of the first Iris to bloom in the spring and the last to bloom in the fall. The Iris has been successfully transplanted to my daughter’s home in Sykesville Maryland (Zone 7) and my cousin’s home in Warwick New York (Zone 6A) where it has done quite well.

I became interested in re-blooming Iris because of this Iris, and while I have collected many re-blooming Iris over the last several years, many of which are quite showy, Grandma’s historic Yellow Iris remains the most consistent re-bloomer I have. For the last three years, I have been attempting to identify the yellow Iris. Based on Internet photographs, physiology and history, I thought the Iris was Southland (Sass, 1934) and purchased a specimen of that Iris last year to do a side by side comparison. The known Southland specimen just bloomed; a week after Grandma’s Iris and I found that it was darker shade of yellow and shorter in size. Obviously Grandma’s Iris is not Southland (Sass, 1934).

The only other documented re-blooming historic yellow Iris which might be a candidate was Sangreal (Sass, 1935). Unfortunately the one Internet seller of this Iris did not have a photograph and I did not find your photograph when I did my research early last summer. When I realized that I did not have Southland, I did another search and found your photograph of the Sangreal Iris, which appears to be identical to Grandma’s Yellow Iris.

Is your Iris Sangreal (Sass, 1935) and is it a prolific re-bloomer? What is the source of your Sangreal Iris?

Michael Ronayne
Nutley, NJ 07110
Attached Photograph

Michael:
Yes your iris does look like it could be SANGREAL. In fact I have other pictures that look even closer to yours than the one I posted on Dave's. It doesn't rebloom for me, but then again I get almost no rebloom from anything where I am now. SANGREAL is a very reliable early spring bloomer for me though.
Have you been to Presby Iris Gardens? I see you are from Nutley and they are practically in your backyard. They have SANGREAL...it should be blooming right about now (buds were out last week) if you want to get an up close view of it.It is in the bed farthest from the Walther house right along side Mountain Ave. You can't miss it.
I got mine from Fox which went out of business a few years ago. If you want a piece I can give one to you.
By the way, where did you find SOUTHLAND? I had it and it died, and looking for another source.
Nice to hear from another 'local' iris grower.
Laetitia

Here is another shot of SANGREAL with more detail of the veining.
Laetitia

Laetitia,

I looked at some of your other responses and realized that you frequent the Presby Iris Gardens. I took a change and drove there on Saturday. The gardens were deserted and almost no medium to tall Iris were in bloom; however, there was one very bright cluster of yellow Iris and from a block away in my car I knew that it had to be Sangreal (Sass, 1935), which it was. The only other medium to tall Iris which were in bloom are Autumn King (Sass, 1924) (a re-bloomer), King Christian (1901) and Iris Germanica (1753). Autumn King is the pollen-pollen grandparent of Sangreal and is obviously the source of its early blooming and re-blooming character.

My Sangreal have been blooming for two weeks now but the ones at Presby are just entering their peak blooming phase. Nutley is in the NYC heat island. The Sangreal at Presby are identical to my Iris. I have quite a number of “wild” Sangreal in a corner of my backyard, so I put a clump in a pot and am bringing it to Presby on Monday morning (when the gardeners are there) to do a side by side comparison, but I am already absolutely sure that the Iris in my son-in-law’s family is Sangreal. My son-in-law’s grandmother lived about a ¼ mile from Presby. If you don’t keep in under control Sangreal will take over a garden. The ones at grandmas had taken over a large portion of the backyard in 50 years. If you want to have a naturalized planting, Sangreal could be a very good selection.

I have a re-blooming Iris display garden in my front yard and Sangreal is the most reliable performer. For me, the second best re-bloomer is Clarence (L.Zurbrigg, 1991). I know one Iris grower in Texas who reported that Clarence is the only Iris which will re-bloom for her. Clarence was sent to my by a fraudulent Internet retailer as an undocumented replacement for Navaho Jewel. I got a lot of other substitutes from this retailer, most of which were of inferior quality. It took me two years to identify all of the substitutions but I lucked out on Clarence.

I purchased my Southland (Sass, 1934) from Nicholls Gardens (http://www.nichollsgardens.com/bb.htm) but they do not carry Sangreal. I was going to purchase a Sangreal specimen from Riverview Iris Gardens (http://www.riverview-iris-gardens.com/listS.htm) but will not need to do that now. Nicholls and Riverview have an interesting mix of Iris and both feature re-bloomers. It will be another year before I can divide Southland but I will be dividing Clarence this summer of you are interested. I also have a lot of other re- bloomers.

Mike

I took grandma’s potted Iris to the Presby Gardens this morning and with assistance of the gardeners did a side-by-side comparison with Sangreal (Sass 1935). Everyone agreed that the two Iris were identical, so the issue is resolved, grandma’s Iris is Sangreal (Sass 1935).

The Presby Gardens has one small section devoted to re-bloomers but they are planning to expand their collection and move it to a more prominent location where passing cars can see the collection in the fall. I am going to have to document the blooming order of their re-bloomers and compare that with my collection. I may be able to come up with a better mix of re-bloomers.

Thank you for posting the Sangreal picture. If you are interested in Clarence rhizomes let me know.

Mike