IRIS MISSOURIENSIS. 

 ROCKY MOUNTAIN IRIS. 



NATURAL ORDEK, IRIDACEyE. 



Iris Missouriensis, Nuttall.— Fioweis beardless; stalk terete, taller than the leaves, sub three- 

 flowered; leaves narrow, sword shaped; capsule oblong-Iinear; flowers two-colored. 

 Stem twelve to sixteen inches high, erect, filled with pith, producing about three flowers, 

 of which the large reflected petals are yellow, and the inner petals blue and narrow. 

 Germ oblong-linear. (Nuttall in an account of the plants collected by Captain Wyeth. 

 Jourual pf the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Vol. VII., p. 38, l'84i. 

 See also Sereno Watson's Botany of Clarence King's Expedition as Iris Tolmieana, and 

 Porter's Flora of Colorado as Iris tenax ?) 



HOUGH we aim to make our work one for the whole 

 people as well as for the botanist, and it mi^ht therefore 

 seem that all that is known of a plant's popular as well as of its 

 scientific history should be included, it is not possible to do more 

 than make selections, or give brief notes, except in cases where 

 there may be many species of a genus, when from time to time 

 we might hope to furnish enough to make every branch of a 

 plant's history tolerably complete. In regard to Iris we have 

 already given short sketches of its popular history, and have 

 related that the ancients gave its fabulous origin to Juno, in 

 honor of Iris, one of her waiting-maids. We may here quote the 

 account of this as set forth by a French writer of several hundred 

 years ago, Louis L. D'Auxerre, and translated into English in 

 1706: 



" We are at a loss to know where Ii'is first had a being ; some 

 say at Florence; others in Greece; some in England; and 

 others again fix her Nadvity elsewhere ; but it is known that she 

 was the Daughter of Thaumantias and Electra ; and, inasmuch 

 as these Deities travell'd much, the Place of her Nativity was 



(lOl) 



