Iris Category: NoID

Collectors of old irises (or old roses, daffodils, etc. ) soon encounter the “Nameless plant.” Often termed ‘noid’ – No I.D. Old NoIDs, are those irises whose names have been lost.

The first brush with a NoID may be the mis-identified plant: the one you bought thinking it was ‘xyz’, but which proved to be not that item. The avid collector retrieving old irises from cemeteries, roadsides, old homesteads, directly and knowingly enters the “Nameless Plant” realm – frequently hoping identification can be made after a bit of study. As many find, there is something of the mysterious and magical in an iris that has thrived on neglect, being passed along from hand to hand, garden to garden over decades.

Text adapted from:
In Praise of Noids,
By Mike Unser, 2005
http://www.historiciris.org/articles/noids-essay-mu.html

An Iris by Any Other Name
by Tom Waters, 2015
https://theamericanirissociety.blogspot.com/2015/06/an-iris-by-any-other-name.html