{"id":8041,"date":"2012-05-08T06:00:43","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T13:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=8041"},"modified":"2012-05-08T06:00:43","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T13:00:43","slug":"purple-bearded-irises-close-up-and-very-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/purple-bearded-irises-close-up-and-very-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Purple Bearded Irises — Close Up and (Very) Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Irises<\/a>
Three caterpillar-like beards rest on three veined hafts. Photos by BF Newhall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

I think of irises as a common, garden-variety flower. You see them growing everywhere. Our own back yard has had dozens of them growing wildish ever since we moved in thirty-plus years ago.\u00a0 But it wasn’t until this spring that I took the time to notice how intricate — and elegant — these flowers truly are.<\/p>\n

\"Irises<\/a>
Viewed from above, the iris blossom’s claws are visible.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There’s a heck of a lot going on<\/a> inside an iris blossom. Stamen. Pistel. Hafts. Falls and standards. Claws. And, of course, those fuzzy, erotic caterpillar-like beards, which give pollinating insects something to grab on to as they enter the blossom looking for nectar.<\/p>\n

An entire universe of stuff is quietly going about its business at our front gate while commute traffic zooms by.<\/p>\n

It so happens there’s a mildly raunchy mommy blogger out there who calls herself, appropriately enough, The Bearded Iris<\/a>. She’s getting nervous about losing her bloggerly anonymity because her kids’ friends can now read. I sympathize.<\/p>\n

The columns I used to write for the Oakland Tribune were not a problem — until the stories I wanted to tell started having to do with things like dancing (and maybe hand-holding, possibly even kissing ) at certain pre-adolescent parties I was privy to.<\/p>\n

As a result of social pressures, real and imagined, The Bearded Iris thinks she might have to tone down her writing — or go underground and write her blog anonymously until her kids are grown up enough to appreciate her gutsy sense of humor.<\/p>\n

By then, I’ll have split the rhizomes of my fecund bearded irises a few more times and once again looked around for a neighbor to take the surplus off my hands.<\/p>\n

Note: A visit to the 2022 Sydney B. Mitchell Iris Society Virtual Iris Show<\/a> website leads me to conclude that the irises that have been volunteering in our backyard for decades are a historic iris first introduced commercially in 1910 — the Alcazar.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Irises<\/a>
I have to confess, I had no idea how complicated and elegant our very ordinary iris blossoms were — until I took the time to photograph them this spring.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[caption id=\"attachment_28388\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"500\"]\"Irises<\/a> An iris blossom close up. Purple. Photo by Barbara Newhall[\/caption]\n

There’s a heck of a lot of erotica going on inside an iris blossom. Stamen. Pistel. Haft. Claws. And, of course, those fuzzy, caterpillar-like beards. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[34,755,88,756,757,69],"class_list":["post-8041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-dont-miss","tag-mommy-bloggers","tag-nature","tag-purple-bearded-iris","tag-writing-memoir","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}