Tall Bearded Iris, "SOUL MUSIC"

This iris is an example on how sometimes Checklists can lead you down the garden path so to speak.The elegant red-violet Iris is the Duane Meek 1978 introduction "Soul Music" and it is well named for sure. With a colour approaching black and light to moderate ruffling with a silky sheen, its overall form is even better than the very fine "Darkside".

Now here is the problem, both versions of the 1979 checklists, the Print register and the Electronic register, state "bronze beard tipped violet" but as you can see in the photo above it is a violet beard tipped bronze. So have we got the whole ID wrong!!!

In Bulletin of the American Iris Society #229, Spring of 1978 page 63 is the advertisement, for D & J Gardens 1373 Coventry Road, Concord, California, (the gardens of Duane and Joyce Meek) which included the following description.....
SOUL MUSIC (Duane Meek, 78.)
Fluorescent dark red-violet self. Solid bronze shoulders. Violet beard tipped bronze. Fine grower and produces multiple stalks on first year plant. EM 38-40" (((Coraband x Spooned Blaze) x La Negra Flor) X Royal Heritage) $25.00

The above hybridisers description confirm's that we have got the right Iris. This goes to prove the more information you have to cross check an Iris the more comfortable you get with knowing you have the correct ID. This however is not the reason that attracted me to the Iris in the first place it was its pedigree. One of the Pod parents back two generations is the Lloyd Austin's 1965 registered Butter yellow Space Age Iris "Spooned Blaze" that has yellow horns ending in small spoons rising from deep-orange beard. Now, good quality Black Space Agers, in any class, are rarer than a blue moon so maybe this season its time to find out if 'Soul Music' is fertile and perhaps unlock its 'Space Age' potential. I'll keep you posted.
Thirty four years old makes 'Soul Music' a Historic Iris, yet its undeniable elegance and modern form belies the fact.

AIS Checklist 1979
SOUL MUSIC (D. Meek, R. 1977). Sdlg. 113-1-0. TB 38-40" (97-102 cm) E-M. Fluorescent dark red-violet self, solid bronze shoulders; lightly ruffled Falls, bronze beard tipped violet. D121-1-8: ((Coraband x Spooned Blaze) x La Negra Flor) X Royal Heritage., D & J Gardens 1978.

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