ADDISONIA 43 
(Plate 22) 
SISYRINCHIUM BERMUDIANA 
Bermuda Iris 
Native of Bermuda 
Family IRIDACEAE Irs Family 
Sisyrinchium Bermudiana L. Sp. Pl. 954. 1753. 
Sisyrinchium iridoides Curtis, Bot. Mag. 3: pl. 94. 1787. 
In dry sunny places, very abundant in Bermuda, and the most 
characteristic herbaceous plant of those islands, where it is endemic, 
flowering in spring. 
For many years, and until the many continental species of 
Sisyrinchium were known to botanists, mainly through the studies 
of Eugene P, Bicknell, the Bermuda plant was regarded as the same 
as North American kinds, a view which has been proven quite 
erroneous. As pointed out by Hemsley in 1884 (Jour. Bot. 22: 
108-110), the Bermuda species does not grow wild elsewhere, but 
the early botanists were right in considering 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 liv- 
ing species it more resembles 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 immediate 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. 
