While working on scale tip rot of lilies, it was discovered that the same bacterium, Pseudonwnas, might also be the cause of scorch disease of rhizomatous iris. Bacteria isolated from scorch-diseased iris that looked like the lily Pseudomonas were inoculated to bulb scales of Easter lily with positive results and the original bacterium was reisolated from the lily scales.

Some of this work on iris scorch disease was done at Cornell University, with the cooperation of Drs. Dimock and Randolph of the Department of Plant Pathology.