Recently it slowly dawned on me that my 'Pinkity' had PBF (not mentioned in the AIS or hybridizer description), and did not (so far as I could tell) have pink-gold diamond dust (in the hybridizer description http://www.bluejiris.com/jedai... ).

I wanted to compare notes, so I recently did a poll of those who have 'Pinkity' in their plant lists. At the last update, 4 people (including me) said their 'Pinkity' had PBF, 2 said theirs did not, one person had ordered for 2017 (so did not have it yet), and one person did not respond. (My 'Pinkity' originally came from Blue J Iris, the hybridizer's nursery, but I do know that nurseries make mistakes.)

I got in contact with Sheri Arevalo, the hybridizer's daughter (she takes the orders for Blue J Iris), and she said that:

"My memory of digging Pinkity a thousand times, though, is yes, it sure does have PBF. "

I asked her to please confirm it, and she says that her father's (the breeder's) response is the "official" word on it:

"Pinkity has about 1 1/4" lavender base, it is not dark enough, for me to call it purple. Kind of on every fan maybe 1 inch on some..."

Now, I am new enough to the iris world that I don't know if there is some color standard for PBF, and if lighter coloration fails that test. All that I can say is that it sure looks purple to me, although there is maybe some variation in the purple - but that seems to be true for every iris here that has PBF .

So, I am going to put the hybridizer's comment into the database, but also indicate PBF on the plant description.

I ordered 2 more 'Pinkity', and I will compare their basal foliage to that of those I already have, once I get them in.

Well mine only had an inch or so of purple, but heavens who rates the color of the purple? Sorry to the Jedlicka's but that is an odd response.

As far as I am concerned it either has purple or it does not.

That's what I thought. I know that I'm still somewhat new to irises (though I've had a few for many years), but either it has color down there, or it doesn't, and if it has color, then it's purple, no matter the "shade".

Anyway, since *I* was confused (and concerned that I had something else), I thought that I had better try to clarify the matter, and put the "PBF foliage" into the database.

Now as for the "pink-gold" diamond dust.. Is it just me, as a daylily person, or does this have different meaning to iris people? I have 'Trillion' also, and while I suppose it might have a faint amount of diamond dusting, in the daylily world that slight amount probably would not even be mentioned in a description.

Marilyn, I agree with Frilly.

Don't have Trillion any longer, but these photographs I took of it in 2015 show some dusting. How does the extent on mine compare to what you have seen on yours?

Debra, from looking at your images, and looking at mine, I have to concede that there is some diamond dusting there, and that the amount on your bloom and mine is about the same.

Below is an image that I took of 'Trillion' on 4-28, next to 'Cool Operator'. After that, is a crop of part of the image, so you can see that there is some diamond dusting there on 'Trillion'.





I guess what I am saying is, lots of daylilies have that extent of diamond dusting (which I guess qualifies as "lightly" diamond dusted), without (in many cases) the hybridizer even mentioning it - because some daylilies really have it in spades, and noticeably sparkle in the sun. Those are the ones that make you take notice, and that the hybridizers make certain to point out. So maybe now I am jaded, and when a hybridizer says "diamond dusting", unless that is qualified as "lightly", I expect a bloom to be dripping with it.

Getting back to 'Pinkity'... at some point I looked, but I don't recall seeing any diamond dusting there. (Again, it might be my jaded eyes.) It didn't help that the Chinese pistache leafed out while 'Pinkity' was in bloom and so towards the end the clump was in shade. The clump is out of bloom now, so that's it for this season. Maybe someone who has 'Pinkity' (with PBF) that is yet to bloom, can chime in on this later.

Oh, that is a niiice picture of Cool Operator.

I'm sure someone with Pinkity will chime in.