Iris ID please

[Menai]

Can anyone put a name to this iris - a Xiphium cv I guess. Bought unlabelled at a plant sale.

Thank you

Erle, Anglesey

[Lesley Cox]

It does look like your Dutch iris type but I can't say which. I've not seen a purple marked one like that. Some might whisper the word VIRUS but it looks sufficiently even (and quite attractive) to be just a natural development.

[Olive Mason]

I bought the white form of Iris latifolia last year from a bulb company. Some are white but others streaked like yours.  I too suspected virus.  I have blue Iris latifolia (which we always called English Irises) in my garden traceable back over one hundred years which I would hate to loose. Do the experts advise I destroy the streaky ones?

[Maggi Young]

Speaking not as an expert but as one who destroyed a whole collection of onco and juno irises because of virus -to prevent it spreading to other plants - I'd say  yes,  burn the striped ones. Too big a risk  to your old latifolia colony.

[Menai]

Thank you Lesley & Maggi. Very helpful but disappointing. I thought it was rather attractive.

Erle

[Maggi Young]

It is rather attractive, Erle - that's the problem ( as I see it) with so many virused plants  - they can be very unusual and pretty - but I'm deeply suspicious of stripey things like that - call me a wimp, if you like!

[Lesley Cox]

A prominent and well-known bulb seller said to me a while back that though the Crocus medius I had, from two commercial sources, was virused, he didn't see that as a problem as it didn't seem to affect the vigour of the corms over a period of time. He continued, so far as I'm aware, to offer it to his customers. However, while it may be something the plants can cope with, that does not necessarily preclude the SPREAD of the virus to other, less sturdy plants, so reluctantly, I would also say burn the affected plants.

[Otto Fauser]

Lesley  , I have been growing Crocus medius since the 1950s ,can't tell if it is virused but it certainly has not lost any vigour and has not spread any virus to many other Crocus species growing around it .

[Lesley Cox]

So long ago Otto, you probably had good strong stock before viruses became so much of an issue with so many bulbs. Was yours grown from seed? Both my lots had darker stippling on the petals and while quite attractive, was, I believe a real danger to other crocuses. More recently Thomas Huber sent me seed of C. medius collected in Italy I think, and that is clean. I had the first flowers this autumn, wonderful rich purple and not a darker mark in sight.

[fermi de Sousa]

It is rather attractive, Erle - that's the problem ( as I see it) with so many virused plants  - they can be very unusual and pretty - but I'm deeply suspicious of stripey things like that - call me a wimp, if you like!

My first impression of Erle's flower was that it might be a sport of 'Delft Blue'
https://www.shootgardening.co.uk/plant/iris-delft-blue
which itself looks a bit suspicious! If you have the room to keep it isolated you could see if it is a stable variegation but as Maggi says the risk if it is virus is that it can spread to more susceptible plants,
cheers
fermi