ABOUT THE SBM IRIS SOCIETY: From the October 2003 issue of the Bulletin of the American Iris Society: The 50th Anniversary of the
Most of us associate the years 1953 with the revelation of the double helical structure of DNA by Watson and Crick; the conquest of Everest by Hillary and Tenzing; the coronation of Queen Elizabeth; the inauguration of President Eisenhower; the death of Stalin; or the publication of the 2nd volume of the Kinsey report, Sexual Behavior of the Human Female. But for iris gardeners in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1953 [marked] the establishment of the Sydney B. Mitchell Iris Society, named after the founder and Dean Emeritus of the University of california School of Librarianship, Sydney B. Mitchell. |
In the months of April and May, students at Berkeley in the 1930s walked to the Berkeley Hills gardens of Mitchell and his neighbor, Carl Salbach, to see the remarkable iris display. Recognized as one of the premier early hybridizers of iris in the U.S., Professor Mitchell died before the founding of the Society. However, the detailed breeding records and well-documented seedlings that he and his predecessor, William Mohr, accumulated attracted many budding irisarians. By 1953, with England and France (former centers of iris culture) concerned with rebuilding war damage, and with the U.S. population moving westward due to WWII needs, conditions were ripe for a surge in iris hybridizing. Within a few decades, the new introductions recorded by the American Iris Society showed a preponderance of West Coast breeders. Many of them spent some time as members of the Sydney B. Mitchell Iris Society and its member ship rolls are replete with the names of nationally acclaimed hybridizers: Gaulter, Rees, Meek, Denny, Ghio, Maryott, McWhirter, Lawyer, Brown, and Hutchings. In their continuing search for ideal growing conditions, many of these hybridizers moved to outlying areas in California and Oregon. Even today [2003] the Sydney B.Mitchell Iris Society is proud of active Hybridizers: Vernon Wood, Carl and LaRue Boswell, Glenn Corlew, Bob Canning, Jim Whitely, Virginia Messick, Abe Feuerstein, and others. --Chuck Dekker |
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ABOUT THE SBM MEDAL: American Iris Society Sydney B. Mitchell Medal |
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Sydney Mitchell's collaboration with William Mohr, - and his continuation of Mohr's breeding lines is now one of the legends of the AIS. Mitchell also bred outstanding irises of his own, and was especially interested in obtaining large flowered yellow tall bearded irises. Some of his finest cultivars are 'Alta California,' `Happy Days,' `Naranja,' 'Natividad,' and `Fair Elaine.' Mitchell was also interested in the native irises of the West Coast, and promoted them at every opportunity. He took great pride in the plantings of PCNs in his own garden. He had a large collection of various forms of I. innominata and I. douglasiana. |
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Tall bearded iris photos |
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An amusing tidbit from "1951, In Memoriam," published by the Academic Senate, University of California, Berkeley: |