25 
The Apogon Section 
It is therefore not impossible that the small herbarium specimens really represent plants, which under 
more favourable conditions of growth, would develop to the size and vigour of that illustrated 
When I. oricntalis is grown in poor conditions of soil, it approximates to /. sibirica in size and 
growth and for this reason it is impossible to decide, in the absence of capsules and seeds, whether 
the Eastern Asiatic plant is really /. oricntalis or /. sibirica . They are here classed as 1 . oricntalis 
and, if this is a mistake, it is at least curious that /. sibirica should be found nowhere between 
European Russia and the neighbourhood of Nertschinsk. 
Whatever the truth may be, the fact remains that as garden plants typical /. sibirica and 
/. oricntalis are very different. I. oricntalis with its flowers partly hidden among the leaves or at 
most only slightly raised above them is scarcely as ornamental a plant as /. sibirica. By hybridisation, 
plants intermediate between these two extremes can easily be obtained and the best garden plants 
are probably those that combine the growth and inflorescence of I. sibirica with the larger and 
more brilliant flowers of I. oricntalis. 
As in the case of I. sibirica, several garden forms with white flowers are known. One is usually 
called Snow Queen, but in my experience it is less vigorous and floriferous than a plant which 
Japanese nurserymen supply as I. laevigata alba. 
Self-fertilised seeds of the white forms come true to the white colour and we may therefore 
look upon the absence of colour as a Mendelian recessive character 
This I. oricntalis of Thunberg must be carefully distinguished from the /. oricntalis of Miller by 
which was probably meant I. ochroleuca, a relative of I. spuria (see p. 63). Miller's name is based 
on a confusion between a Pogoniris and an Apogon and cannot therefore stand. 
For the cultivation, propagation, etc. of /. oricntalis see p. 19. 
t ♦ /. De LAV AY I 
•Micheli in Revue horticole, p. 398, figs. 128, 129 (1895). 
•Bot. Mag. t. 7661 (1899). 
Distribution. Swampy ground in South-western China. 
Tatsienlu (9500 — 13,500 ft), 1890, Pratt, no. 247 (K) (E). 
1891, Semite (P). 
1903, Wilson, no. 4555 (K). 
Washan (W. Szechuan, 5 — 8000ft.), 1908, Wilson, no. 3071 (K). 
Diagnosis. 
I. Delavayi Apogon ; I. sibiricae similis sed capsula oblonga, longissima ; sernina compressa, sub- 
orbicularia, marginibus pallidis ; flores purpurei nec coerulei. 
Description. 
Rootstock, a creeping rhizome, less closely tufted, perhaps, than that of /. sibirica, but similarly 
clothed in fibrous remains of old leaves. 
Leaves, about 2 — 2^ feet long, by £ — 1 in. broad, linear acuminate, glaucescent on both surfaces. 
Stem, 3 — 4 feet, hollow, bearing a reduced leaf and one or two lateral heads besides the terminal. 
Spat/ie valves, 3 — 4 inches long, keeled, the outer being usually distinctly longer than the inner, 
2-flowered, slightly scarious at tip only. 
Pedicel, 1^ — 3 in., triangular in section. 
Ovary , sharply trigonal, sides concave without a median ridge. 
Tube , \ in., formed of the concretion of the green falls and deep violet purple standards. 
Falls. The haft, which bears near the base two whitish, purple-spotted buttresses is of a greenish- 
white, spotted and mottled with purple-violet except along the greenish median ridge. The blade is 
emarginate, orbicular or rounded oval, of a deep violet-purple with white markings and a conspicuous 
white patch at the bend. 
Standards. The small lanceolate emarginate blade is held at an angle of 45’ by the canaliculate 
haft, deep violet. 
Styles, broad, above an inch long. 
Crests, small, quadrate and overlapping. 
Stigma, a tongue-shaped appendage. 
Filaments, cream. 
Anthers, mauve. 
Pollen, cream. 
Capsule, narrowly oblong, sharply trigonal, tapering equally, but somewhat abruptly, at either end ; a 
distinct furrow runs down each side, so that the section is almost trefoil, often as much as 2 — 2$ in. long. 
Seeds, flat, round, brown discs. 
Observations. 
I. Delavayi was introduced into cultivation by the Paris Jardin des Plantes from seeds sent from 
Yunnan by the Abb6 Delavaye. The type of Bot. Mag. t. 7661 (K) was raised at Kew from seeds 
obtained from Paris. 
D. 
4 
