Hello again everyone,
Since you were so helpful with identifying my William A. Setchell, I am going to take advantage of your knowledge and see if you can help with this one. It is a medium size, about 35-6 inches tall. The photos are pretty accurate, although it often looks almost black to me. It has a strong fragrance. I got it from a woman in about 1969 in the San Fernando Valley, (north of Los Angeles), if that makes any difference. Not sure. Thank you in advance!

If it's really that early, I am thinking either Cold Red or Study in Black. There are no blue or purple beards listed as such in the database for decades 1940s or earlier.

Cold Red:


Study in Black:


The only way you are going to ID this for certain is to buy a known suspected cultivar and plant it close enough to compare with your NOID.

Well, thank you, Daisy, it sure looks a lot like Cold Red, doesn't it?

If you could pry the standards of yours apart and get a close photo of the style coloration, it could help.

Also a closer photo of the beard and haft atea

Cold Red appears to have more defined striations and a clear purple stripe down from the beard onto the falls that the NOID lacs. Otherwise very close. It would help to get a close up of the falls, beard, area.

Ask, and ye shall receive, Daisy. I appreciate you taking the time to go into detail on this.

Center detail


Up the throat

Tom's right about the lack of the central stripe on the falls. But I'm betting it's closely related to yours. Maybe even a sibling. But the problem is that in those days there were many, many cultivars that never got pictures attached to them in the database.

Cold Red has (Adam x Edenite) in its parentsge.

Here is another that does

Daisy and Tom, I appreciate your time and effort in this matter. It looks very much like both, and closer to Red Ruler to me. Perhaps I will re-label it with and addition (possible Red Ruler). I just like knowing who is who. But there is no shame in being a Noid, either. lol Thank you for your help.

Do not relabel it without confirming first by obtaining and planting a known cultivar to compare. or at the very least be certain that you add the word "possible" to the label. And make sure that anyone you give it to knows that it's an NOID

This is the way terrible errors creep into what should be known stock.

Oh, I agree, Daisy, I would never want to mislead someone like that.