Is there a way to search a span of years? I see a field for yr of hybridized and introduced. But suppose I want to see all the iris between year 1920 and year 1980. Is there a way to do that?

difficult because there are several thousand irises registered per year, at least after the end of WW II.

Lucy's right.....that search would run a loooong time . What ,exactly, is the reason you want to search that way?

Oh, well yeah that would be a problem.
I have an iris I am trying to ID and I think it is an older variety.

Well, I'll tell you the "method" I use.....sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.......but it's the easiest on my "pea brain", and keeps me from going TOO nuts ,looking at a zillion pictures:
1) Take some good pictures of the iris, from several angles, and some close ups of the beard. A photo, or two of the whole plant, (to show branching, and bud count) helps, as well.
2) take some good notes of :
a) how long you have grown it, or, better way to say it, How long you have "known' it to be grown.( i.e. I f you've had it 4 years, and you got it from Aunt Sally, who got it from a neighbor in 1972....you already know it was intro'ed BEFORE 1972)
b) what is it's "bloom season"....early ,late, and does it ever try to re bloom?
c) average height of the stalks ,(to the top of the blossom", and what you think it's "class' is (SDB, BB, TB, whatever)
d) does it display any PBF ? (Purple based foliage)
e) are the spathes papery, or green, or tinged with purple?
d) does it "smell", and ,if so, what like....grapes, spice, orange blossoms?
3) Post the picture here, on the forum, with a brief description, in hopes someone will say " I think that's *****", that gives you a "leg up" in your search.
4) Use the search feature to scan for 'possibles' (i.e. blue self, yellow beard 30" tall'', no PBF, papery spathes, and whatever else you can note)
5)If the above doesn't get you any "possibles, you can also look through vendors sites for matches to the photo (or "close" matches, for further research), also the Gallery section on the HIPS site has lots of pics, as does the iris Paradise site.
6) if still no luck, either try all the above again, with more / better notes and pictures, or learn to love the "NOID"
7) if you do find a match, or at least what seems to be a match, you then can either beg, borrow, or buy, a "start" of what you *think* is the iris, and grow it along side your noid, when it blooms, make a CAREFUL exam ,of BOTH, not being afraid to "dissect" a bloom of each, and looking at every feature beard, style arms, anthers , veneration, *everything * you can! If every thing's the same...you have a name!, if it's NOT the same....well, you know what your NOID *isn't*, and you can either 8try again*, or....learn to love the NOID !

It's not usually easy, take lots of time, it will make you nuts, as well as cross-eyed from looking at pictures, and reading descriptions in the check lists, and old iris catalogs.....but GOD, it's fun!!!! Good luck, and enjoy your search !

Frillylily said:Is there a way to search a span of years? I see a field for yr of hybridized and introduced. But suppose I want to see all the iris between year 1920 and year 1980. Is there a way to do that?

To a limited extent you can, yes. If you type "197" (without the quote marks of course) in the Year of Introduction field, you'll get a list of every iris introduced between 1970 and 1979. In that way, you can search decade by decade. It will generate long lists, but I routinely do searches of the database that result in thousands of returns. They are fairly easy to sort through.

One caveat, we weren't able to automatically import the information for irises registered prior to 1950. Those have had to be entered manually and we aren't done, not even close really, so search results for those years are going to be incomplete. However, if an iris from that era is still widely grown today, there's a decent chance its information has been entered. For your purposes, a search of the 20's, 30's, and 40's might still work.

ah, ha! Thank you, I will keep that in mind. That may work for me. I tried searching Tall Bearded and chose lavender, cream and yellow but got no results. If I understand -if I check say three colors-red,blue,purple, It will not get me any results because it searches for plants that meet all 3 of the color criteria? So I have to do a separate search for each color?

Yes. You are correct. It will search for all 3 in one flower.

If you can show a picture of the iris, I can suggest ideas for the search parameters that are most likely to generate matching entries in the database.

That's going to be a tough one because the colors are "tweeners". Your best bet would be to check the boxes for Tall Bearded and Blend (in the flower pattern field). Then search by each decade. Probably don't need to worry about the pre-1950 irises, it doesn't look that old.