Lovely chimeras. I still vote for weather. It would be really high odds against your iris and your friend's same iris both getting the same virus at the same time after being grown in separate locations for many years.

I know the difference between a chimera and a sport, but is there any way of telling just by looking at a plant whether you are seeing a chimera or a sport?

The only sports I have ever had were little offshoots on the stem close to a normal bloom, so I can't say I have ever seen a fully realized sport. Isn't Joseph's Coat a sport off of another cultivar?

https://www.historiciris.org/l...

I have quite a few plants that were originally sports propagated for commercial sale. I have a variegated Virginia creeper that originally started as sport and was then hybridized by some enterprising plantsperson. But if I happened to be walking in the woods, I wouldn't know if I was looking at a chimera, a sport, a plant with a virus, or a plant that was having a bad hair day. So I wonder how professionals identify them.

My take on it is, if a "stranger" shows up in your clump of iris.....we'll say, it has white standards, while the clump is of an "all purple variety......and, after close inspection, you find it wasn't from a "dropped seed", but actually from a "rhizome connected to" the original......and, after removal, and replanting, it continues to have white standards (which would show that it ISN'T a Chimera caused by weather or chemical contact), it would be a "sport"

Thanks Arlyn . I thought Joseph's Coat was a sport. Did NOT know Sherwin Wright is also a sport from the same iris! Honorabile must have had a lot of unstable genes.

So basically a sport is an increase that displays features that are not the same as the mother. With a sport all blooms on the stalk would be the same.
While, Chimera are random blooms on a stalk with normal blooms as well. Caused by stressors (weather, chemical, what have you). You would not find an entire increase blooming as chimera. Do I have that right?

Yes, at least as far as I understand it.

Honorabile has lots of "sports"
Joseph's Coat Katkamier
Sherwin-Wright
Kalideoscope
Brown's Mutant
Sport Coat (a fairly new one)
and , maybe , another one...I can't remember, for sure .

Thanks for that succinct explanation Arlyn. I am wiser than I was a few hours ago.

bramedog said:I had an iris in one of my beds this past season that had stripes on it like a broken pattern on all of its blooms. Someone told me that it was probably a virus in the soil that was causing it. Never got a return reply of what it may be or if it is something I should be concerned about. The plants and rhizomes looked healthy for rest of the year. Any thoughts?

To me, this white iris with red beards looks like the cultivar, "Nordica," an award of merit winner in 1998. See Tall Bearded Iris (Iris 'Nordica')

I suspect this is a sport on just one of the rhizomes, and that when that rhizome dies or is cut out, you'll be rid of that color variation. If the other rhizomes are blooming normally, I'd probably cut out the sported one. It's a very pretty iris, worth keeping. I see no sign of disease.

If the sport grows well, and is strong with good features, wouldn't it be worth trying to save it?

It ended up being a chimera.Never did it again. We had some cold weather when the buds were forming that year. The iris was growing at this house when we bought it in 1991. I suspect by the bloom form, this cultivar goes back many years before we bought the house.