84 



IRIDACEAE. 



1. SISYRINCHIUM L. 



Perennial mostly tufted slender herbs with fibrous roots from contracted 

 rootstocks, simple or branched 2-winged or 2-edged stems, and linear leaves. 

 Flowers from terminal spathes consisting of mostly one pair of opposite con- 

 duplicate herbaceous bracts enclosing membranous scales; perianth blue, violet, 

 or white with a yellow eye, rarely all yellow, the 6 oblong or obovate segments 

 spreading and aristulate; filaments monadelphous; anthers linear or oblong, 

 the sacs distinct at base; style threadform, the branches filiform or obsolete; 

 ovary 3-celled ; capsule globose, oval or obovoid, usually trigonous, loculicidally 

 3-valved ; seeds globose to obovoid, often angled, pitted or smooth. Flowers 

 fugacious, opening successively in sunlight, each usually lasting but a day. 

 [Probably not less than 150 species, nearly all American, the following typical.] 



1. Sisyrinchium Bermudiana L. BER- 

 MUDIANA. BERMUDA IRIS. BERMUDA BLUE- 

 EYED GRASS. (Fig. 107.) Glabrous; stem 

 rather slender, 10'-'20' high, flattened and 

 winged, usually branched. Leaves linear, 

 smooth, 2"-5" wide, acuminate, the basal 

 ones 4'-12' long, those of the stem shorter; 

 peduncles several, flattened and winged like 

 the stem, but more slender ; spathes about 

 1' long, acute, narrowly scarious-margined, 

 several-flowered; pedicels filiform, longer 

 than the spathe ; perianth-segments obovate, 

 emarginate, long-aristulate, bright violet- 

 blue with yellow bases, 6"-8" long ; filament- 

 column about one third as long as the peri- 

 anth-segments, the anthers yellow ; capsule 

 globose-oblong, blunt, 3 "-4" long, splitting 

 into 3 valves and long-persistent. [S. irid- 

 oides Curtis, Bot. Mag. 3: pi. 94.] 



In all dry sunny places, very abundant, 

 and the most characteristic herbaceous plant 

 of Bermuda. Endemic. Flowers in spring. 



For many years, and until the many 

 continental species of Sisyrinchium were 

 known to botanists, the Bermuda plant was 

 regarded as the same as North American 

 kinds, a view which has been proven quite 

 erroneous, and the Bermuda species does not grow wild elsewhere, as pointed 

 out by Hemsley in 1884 (Journ. Bot. 22: 108-110) but the early botanists 

 considered it distinct; it, doubtless, originated however from seed of one of 

 the continental species brought to Bermuda by a bird or on the wind, the 

 plant becoming differentiated through isolation from its parent-stock. Among 

 living species it resembles more Sisyrinchium alatum Hooker, of Mexico than 

 any of the species of the eastern United States or the West Indies, but .it would 

 not be safe to conclude that S. alatum was its ancestor. 



The oldest known specimen of this beautiful and interesting plant is one 

 collected by J. Dickenson about 1699, preserved in the Sloane herbarium at the 

 British Museum of Natural History. Early illustrations of it are given by 

 Plukenet (Phytographia pi. 61, /. #) and by Dillenius (Hortus Elthamensis 

 pi. 41, f. 48) and a fine colored picture by Redoute (Liliacees pi. 149). 



The Iris-like, equitant leaves begin to appear in September. The plant is 

 not hardy in England nor in the northeastern United States, but it would 



