Hein and All,
I’m surprised to see a double Itzim – quite unusual! Recently contributors have been detailing how/why flowers got their names. I confess to being responsible for the peculiar, meaningless ‘Itzim’ name!
I had bought the seedling stock from Grant Mitsch during a visit with Betty and Bill & Rosemary Roese in 1977 as a substitute for ‘Jetfire’ which so captivated me on the visit that I said in my report in the Dec.1977 ADS Journal “If we were to pick one flower as a variety to survive the test of time, it would be ‘Jetfire’. We predict that it will be grown by the tens of tonnes by the end of the century.” That was one of two predictions that came true!
Anyway, back to ‘Itzim’ and how it got its name. I first applied for ‘Mitzi’ in 1982 – but Alec Gray got there nearly 30 years before me with ‘Mitzy’. Rather than think of a completely new name it seemed easier to just make an anagram of ‘Mitzi’ – hence ‘Itzim’.
Brian Duncan