TB 40″ M R1D

Schreiner’s Iris Lovers Catalog 1955 “Dark Iris have been rather restricted to smaller flowers, shorter stems and generally to colors on the blue side of black. Congo represents a real achievement in that it is the first large dark iris with a reddish silken sheen on the top of a coal black undertone. With its extra large blooms this gloriously rich black with red tints fills a long vacant niche in the iris spectrum  10.00”

 ‘Ethiop Queen‘ x ‘Velvet Dusk’. Schreiner 1953.

From Cooley’s 1958 catalog: “The first large dark Iris with a reddish silken sheen on top of a coal-black undertone. Extra large, nicely branched 42″ in height.”

Note: Name released by John Dee Wareham, who had registered an R4D as Congo in 1924.