78 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. [Proc. 3D Ser. 



III.— THREE UNDESCRIBED CALIFORNIAN PLANTS. 



Iris Purdyi, sp. no v. 



Plate VII, Fig. 2. 



Rootstocks slender, scarcely thicker than the fleshy roots; leaves dark 

 green or somewhat glaucous, glabrous, erect or laxly spreading, surpassing 

 the scapes, 6-7 mm. wide, 2-4 dm. long, with long, acuminate apex and mar- 

 gins membranous and shortly ciliate, scapes 15-20 cm. long, slightly flattened; 

 bracts generally overlapping, inflated, glaucous, striate, tinged with rose-color, 

 acuminate; spathes usually 2-flowered, similar to the bracts, but more inflated 

 and more rosy, especially on the margins; pedicels i cm. long, about equal- 

 ing the tube of the perianth; perianth with throat slightly dilated above the 

 junction of the style; outer segments oblong, 7 cm. long, 2 cm. wide, rich 

 cream-color, beautifully marked with fine lines of yellow on the claw, and 

 with dotted veins of purple on the spreading blades; inner segments cream- 

 color, somewhat shorter than the outer, widely spreading, linear-oblong, with 

 margins strongly sinuate; stamens with filaments 5 mm. long, 2 mm. broad, 

 narrowing abruptly at the insertion of the anthers; anthers 15-1S mm. long, 

 3 mm. wide, the poUiniferous margins less than i mm. wide, edged on each 

 side with purple; style slender, 12-15 mm. long, stigmas about 4 cm. long, 

 including the crests, which are \\ cm. long, laciniate on the outer edge, tinted 

 with pale rose-color to the ridge connecting the lobes of the stigma; stigma 

 scale truncate, slightly undulate; capsules oblong, tapering equally at both 

 extremities, valves about 12 mm. wide and 3 cm. long. 



This elegant Iris is the species common in the Redwood 

 region of Mendocino County, around Ukiah. It has here- 

 tofore been included under /. Douglasiana, which it re- 

 sembles in its narrow, red-based, laxly spreading leaves, its 

 cream-colored flowers, and its habitat. /. Douglasiana has 

 always been considered an extremely variable species and 

 includes a great number of forms, some of which may 

 prove, as this had done, when carefully studied and com- 

 pared, to be distinct species. 



Iris Purdyi differs from other Californian species of Iris 

 in the peculiar bract-clothed, flowering stems. From /. 

 DouglasianaxX. differs in having larger flowers, leaves lighter 

 green, less distinctly nerved, somewhat stiffer, and some- 

 times glaucous. The stigma scale is truncate instead of 

 triangular-acuminate. The stamens are much broader, the 

 capsule shorter, broader, and more uniform at each ex- 

 tremity. The flowers are fewer in the spathes, less exserted, 



