Delirium

Could you define luminata? I'm trying to follow, but the jargon escapes me.

Sheer Excitement



LF2MB - Note: I got this last Spring after bloom from the couple that was moving to Florida and their entire garden was available. The problem was the signs were not always in the correct place. So I hope it is right; but I know it is not. Why, you ask? Because the hybridizer (Rick Tasco) visited my garden in late October and said that the size of the rhizomes were too small (also it had PBF and Sheer Excitement does not).

Synergy

Concerto For Lloyd



Joan Roberts Introduction

Daughter of Stars

Elizabethan Age

Fancy Dress

High Master

Indigo Seas

Silent Wings

Spendthrift



LF2MB

Telepathy

So, I only have 13 (14 if I count "Action Adventure"). I think I need to get more of these!

Greg -- Sheer Exitement is gorgeous -- I can see why you wanted it!! It'll be interesting to see what you got!

You have a beautiful collection of Luminatas!!

901Bertwood said:Could you define luminata? I'm trying to follow, but the jargon escapes me.

Hi Roberta. The definition of Luminata is as follows: The style arms and hafts of the flower are white or yellow; the remainder of the flower is washed with color.

The practical explanation is this: The *inside* of the flower is white or yellow and the standards and falls are a color wash rather than a solid color.

If you look at each picture of Luminatas, you will see that the net effect is that the flower glows from within. Once you *see* the illumination effect -- which is why they are called Luminatas -- you'll recognize one everytime you see it!

A luminata looks like a reverse plicata. It is one of the plicata series. There is white (or yellow) at the heart of the flower with a white (or yellow) edge to the petal. Others in the series are a very dark self color (see SDB Black Lightning) the pattern is hidden underneath , our familiar plicata, luminata & glaciata which is the absence of color & shows as white, yellow or pink with no visable purple or dark markings.


IB Backlit Beauty (Tasco).

An early TB luminata was 'Moonlit Sea' which is the reason Keith Keppel named his plant 'Moonlit Water'.

901Bertwood said:Could you define luminata? I'm trying to follow, but the jargon escapes me.

Luminatas are derived from plicata breeding with patterning of colors on the flower petals essentially reversed.

A typical plicata looks like this:



The flowers have a light ground color (white in this case), with a pattern of anthocyanin pigment (purple in this case) around the rim of the petals and across the hafts. Often the style arms are colored as well (purple in this case).

Luminatas also have a light ground color, but the anthocyanin pigment is present across most of the flower EXCEPT along the edges, the hafts and the style arms. In this picture of Montmartre, you can see the light yellowish ground color at that the edges of the petals, the hafts, and the style arms. The rest of the petal is covered with anthocyanin pigment. A "reverse plicata", you might say.



The Sass brothers were among the first to introduce luminatas back in the 1940's with

and

but many irisarians thought they were diseased plants, or at least looked diseased. Luminatas really didn't gain wide acceptance in the iris world until Keith Keppel and others started introducing them almost 50 years later.

Thanks Mary Ann I was typing when you posted the definition. I will see if I find the history in my documents.