,902.] OBSERVATIONS ON THE FLORA OF JAPAN. 149 



splitting into fibres ; pedicel about 12-20 mm. long, gracile, Spathe 1- 

 flowered ; valves 2, complicate, oblanceolate, acute, narrowed below, narrowly 

 carinate dorsally, membranaceous, viridescent, scarious towards the margin, 

 several to many-nerved with very loose and delicate transverse veinlets, 

 3-3J cm. long, the lower one slightly larger and very shortly tubular below. 

 Flower small, about 2J-3 cm. across, yellow! Perianth-tube narrowly 

 cylindrical, but stout-filiform when dried, about equal to or hardly shorter 

 than the segments, glabrous, about 20-25 mm. long. Sepals broadly an- 

 guiculate, beardless ; unguis erect-patent, longitudinally 3-ridged and yellow 

 with minute brown spots internally, greenish-yellow externally, about 4 mm. 

 across in the top but gradually a little narrower below, about 13 mm. long; 

 the limb patent and then shghtly deflexed, shorter than the unguis, oval, 

 scarcely emarginate, entire, thin, at the base with a ridge which comes from 

 the unguis below and a brown colour, yellow internally, brownish-purpurascent 

 externally, about 10 mm. long, 8-8 1 mm. wide, the mid veins 3, the lateral 

 veins erect-patent and rather many. Petals shorter than the sepals, but 

 slightly longer than the unguis of sepals, erect, long-unguiculate, thin ; the 

 limb obovate, or obovato-elliptical, retuse, entire, yellowish, with a few and 

 loose veins ; the unguis narrow, canaliculate, purplish. Stamens 3 ; fila- 

 ments filiform, a little longer than the anther ; anthers oblong-linear, white 

 with purple colour. Style-branches erect- patent, slightly higher than the 

 petals, pale-yellow, truncate at the base, about 11 mm. long including the 

 crest, 3 mm. broad ; crest-ktbes narrowly deltoid or ovato-lanceolate, acutish 

 or acuminato-acute, often obscurely pauci-denticulate on the outer edge, about 

 4 mm. long ; stigmatic lobe minute, semiorbicular. Ovary entirely enclosed 

 within the spathe, obtusely trigonous, oblong-cylindrical, long-stipitate, light 

 green, smooth, about 8-10 mm. long ; stipe pale, longer than the ovary, 

 14-23 mm. hmg. Capsule subglobose. Fl. April. 



Nom. Jap. Kin-kahUs^ihata (golden-flowered Iris), 



Eab. Prov. Musashi : Tokyo, cult. {T. HJakinol April 18, 1888, flowers, 

 July 26, 1888, adult leaves. May 1, 1902, young leaves, July 19, 1902, 

 adult leaves). 



I have no knowledge of its wild-growing locality being known only in 

 cultivation. This is perhaps the plant' described by Maximowicz in the 

 note under Iris minuta Franch. et Sav. in Mel. Biol. X. p. 715, from 

 Siebold's manuscript drawings. Also, this may be Franchet et Savatier's 

 L'is minuta, though the authors describe the flower to be " pallide crerulei, 

 lamina sepalorum veuis purpureis percursa," but really it must be yellow, 

 the flowers of the dried specimens will lose soon their natural colour and 



