APOGON 69 



times it passes. /. biglumis, Vahl, above quoted, is kept 

 up in the Kew Herbaceous List as a variety ; so also is 

 /. oxypetala. The var. Pallasi, Bot. Mag., t. 2331, is also 

 included in that list. 



11. I. bracteata, S. Wats, in Proc. Amer. Acad., xx. 

 375. This is regarded by Mr Carrington Ley as the 

 best of the yellow Californian species, but it is difficult 

 to grow. The rhizome is slender, rudimentary leaves 

 brown and very rigid. The true leaves are few to a 

 tuft, thick and rigid, I to 2 ft. long, ^ to J broad, pale 

 green and glossy above, glaucous beneath, edge revolute. 

 The peduncle is one-headed, 2 to 3 in. or I ft. long, 

 with small lanceolate bract leaves. The spathes are two- 

 flowered, outer valves 2 to 2^ in. long. The pedicels 

 are long, perianth-tube nearly obsolete ; limb 2 in. long, 

 pale yellow ; falls with an ovate blade, | to f in. broad, 

 as long as the haft, veined with lilac ; standards shorter, 

 oblanceolate. The style branches are an inch long with 

 very acuminate crests. Mr Purdy says that this and 

 /. Purdyi are the only Pacific coast Irises with the stem 

 having several brownish, short, closely-sheathing bracts, 

 instead of short leaves sheathing at the base. 



12. I. Purdyi, Eastwood in Proceedings of the Cali- 

 fornian Academy of Sciences, 1897, Botany, vol. i. no. 2, 



p. 78. This Iris, according to the gentleman after whom 

 it is named, has been cultivated as /. macrosiphon, and 

 owing to the confusion that has existed among the Cali- 

 fornian Irises and because the original description is given 

 in a paper not easily consulted in this country, I give it 

 nearly in full, but with measurements altered to terms 

 of inches. " Rootstock slender, scarcely thicker than the 

 fleshy root ; leaves dark green or somewhat glaucous, 

 glabrous, erect or laxly spreading, surpassing the scapes, 

 ^ in. wide, 8 to 1 6 in. long, with long acuminate apex, 

 and margins membranous and shortly ciliate ; scapes 6 

 to 8 in. long, slightly flattened, bracts generally over- 



