when i search for Iris sibirica 'First Frost', i get no hits. If i search for Iris 'First Frost' i get it?

I think that's because it is listed as "Siberian Iris (Iris 'First Frost')" not Iris sibirica. Compare to "Siberian Iris (Iris sibirica 'Mrs. Hatch'), which has sibirica in the "title."

Some plants contain their species names, some don't. I suggest keeping searches as simple as possible.

frankrichards16 said: when i search for Iris sibirica 'First Frost', i get no hits. If i search for Iris 'First Frost' i get it?

There are a couple of reasons for that.

First, the search engine here works quite a bit differently than perhaps people are used to. Unlike google, it doesn't guess what you are looking for. Rather, it searches for EXACTLY what you put in it and tries to match every term. Consequently, the more terms you put in the narrower the results become, any misspellings will result in no hits, etc. So when you added "sibirica" to the search box, you got no hits for First Frost because "sibirica" is not part of that plant's name.

The reason why "sibirica" is not part of the plant's name is straightforward. The vast majority of Siberian Iris cultivars are not descended only from Iris sibirica, but rather they are hybrids created by crossing several species of irises (Iris sibirica was one of the species but Iris sanguinea actually played a larger role) and thus are properly referred to simply as "Iris", not "Iris sibirica".

Unfortunately, many nurseries (especially those that don't specialize in irises) insist on adding the specific epithet "sibirica" which creates confusion and obscures the true nature of these plants.

Worse yet, the same nurseries usually refer to bearded irises as "Iris germanica". The vast majority of bearded iris cultivars are also hybrids derived from several species including Iris pallida, Iris variegata, and Iris aphylla, among others. Iris x germanica itself is believed to be a naturally occuring sterile hybrid that played no role in the creation of modern bearded iris cultivars. Siberian irises can at least trace some of their ancestry to Iris sibirica.

"Siberian Iris" basically refers to a group of hybrid plants, primarily being derived from two blue-flowered Asian species, I. sibirica and I. sanguinea.

Iris sibirica 'First Frost', Siberian Iris 'First Frost' and Iris 'First Frost" are all common ways to to identify an Iris in the "Siberian Iris" Group.

@KentPfeiffer, thanks for the interesting details and I think your first paragraph may point to a possible solution. If "aka Iris sibirica" is added to Siberian Iris database entries, my query would probably work.?

Instead of more coding work for Dave, the simplest solution is to simplify your searches as already said. Anything that specific (Iris sibirica 'First Frost') needs to be entered exactly as the database lists it to find it. Only Google guesses at what you mean, and many times is far off the mark. Other databases do not guess, you need to be exact.

Enter only "First Frost" (without quotes) and your Iris is 2nd on the very short list.

Or if you click on the plant-specific database>Irises and then search from there, which now only looks within the iris database, it's the only one that pops up.

Interesting thing about google search, if I search for Iris siberica 'First Frost', I get several revenant hits. However, I see no results from garden.org. If I do a google site search (same topic) of garden.org, the only results I get are links to this forum:)

frankrichards16 said: " If "aka Iris sibirica" is added to Siberian Iris database entries, my query would probably work.?

But why should that be added? As Kent explained:
The reason why "sibirica" is not part of the plant's name is straightforward. The vast majority of Siberian Iris cultivars are not descended only from Iris sibirica, but rather they are hybrids created by crossing several species of irises (Iris sibirica was one of the species but Iris sanguinea actually played a larger role) and thus are properly referred to simply as "Iris", not "Iris sibirica".

Siberian Iris is also known as Iris sibirica, so why not add it?

You've already been informed that this iris is a hybrid. The only plants listed with a genus and species in our database are plants that are of that species. It would be wrong to add incorrect information to the database just to accommodate faulty search methods. Leave the species out of your search string if there's any possibility that the plant is a hybrid.

Try this if you prefer the way Google does searches vs database searches. You can specify the site you want Google to search by adding <space>:site.com. So you would enter:

Iris siberica 'First Frost' site:garden.org

I really don't see the problem just entering fewer words to search directly here though. You're typing far fewer letters to get to the same information as typing out the long string of words. To me that would be far far preferable in the grand scheme of things.

adding "also known as" to a database entry does not seem to be incorrect information as long as it is aka.

I apologize for my "faulty search methods"

The NGA database is perfect, I do not think any changes are necessary. However, clearly changes are necessary on my part.

@Murky, I probably was not very clear on a previous post, I did a google site search for Iris sibirica 'First Frost' and did not get any results from the NGA database. I only got results for this very thread that is discussing Iris sibirica:)

I use a google sheets spreadsheet to keep track of my plants. In the spreadsheet, for each plant, I have links to several sites to search for information on that specific plant. For NGA I use the NGA search engine. Entries in my spreadsheet "Database" refer to Siberian Iris as Iris sibirica. So, I click on a link, and it does the search. I can change the links to use google, but I now know that does not solve the issue.

When I do the Google search (and I happened to copy the one line with a typo in it but it still got me there), the 2nd item is a link to a photo you uploaded here, and then the link to the database info is at the very top. Yes, it's not a direct link to the database because it's still not the exact words as here, but it still gets you there with 2 clicks.

The google search gets the hit on garden.org because my photo contains metadata that included iris sibirica:)

Also as Kent mentioned, here on the NGA database it "searches for EXACTLY what you put in it"
You leave out the appropriate apostrophe in your search, it won't find it. Please copy and paste the exact name when searching.
Species X Iris (Iris 'What's on Second')

Calif_Sue said: Also as Kent mentioned, here on the NGA database it "searches for EXACTLY what you put in it"
You leave out the appropriate apostrophe in your search, it won't find it. Please copy and paste the exact name when searching.
Species X Iris (Iris 'What's on Second')

Yes, i forgot about the Apostrophe problem. I think most people use a single quote for an Apostrophe. In my spreadsheet I eliminate the single quote from a plant name or use the an Apostrophe. I do this because many of my spreadsheet formulas fail when I have 3 single quotes in a plant name. It appears that the NGA database treats an Apostrophe and a single quote as the same character, so you can search Species X Iris (Iris 'What's on Second') with an Apostrophe or single quote in the name. However, it does not like leaving them out.