SPANISH IRIS 



diversity of color, ranging from pure white through many hues 

 of mauve, blue, purple, yellow, bronze, and claret. Many are 

 most exquisitely veined and marked. 



The leaf is erect and without distinction of blade and petiole; 

 the surfaces which stand right and left are ahke. A careful ex- 

 amination shows that what appears to be a flat leaf-blade is in 

 fact a leaf-blade folded lengthwise. Toward the tip the folding is 

 complete and the lateral halves are blended, but nearer the base 

 they are still more or less distinct and a crevice is there left in which 

 are clasped the flower stem and the base of the sword-Uke leaf 

 above it on the opposite side. That which answers to the under 

 side of other leaves is here the outside. The clusters of leaves at 

 the ground are arranged in what is termed an equitant manner; 

 each leaf by its folding sits astride the leaf just above it. 



Dwarf Garden Iris, Iris pttmila, is a low species of the ger- 

 manic type. The flowers are purple and violet and the entire 

 plant not more than six inches high. Two native mountain 

 species, both dwarf, are sometimes found in cultivation, Iris 

 verna and Iris cristata. 



SPANISH IRIS 



Iris xiphium. 



Long cultivated; native to North Africa, Corsica, and south of 

 France. The t)fpe is violet and purple; the principal varieties are 

 Iris lusitanica, in which the flowers are yellow, and Iris spectabilis, in 

 which the habit is more robust and the flowers darker yellow touched 

 with brown. 



Rootstock. — Bulbous. 



Leaves. — Slender, half-round, deeply channelled. 



5/eOT.— One to two feet high; the spathe one or two flowered. 



Perianth-tube. — Wanting; outer segments with an orbicular blade 

 about an inch broad, much shorter than the fiddle-shaped haft, the 

 whole two to two and a half inches long; inner segments oblong, clawed, 

 a litde more than half an inch broad. 



Stamens. — Three. 



Style-branches.— An inch or more long; crests large, quadrate. 



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