22 
The Apogon Section 
Tube , £ in. circular, with many indistinct ribs. 
Falls. The orbicular blade narrows abruptly to the much veined haft, which bears two projecting 
flanges near the base 1 . The colouring is produced by blue-purple veins on a white ground, which is 
entirely obscured on the outer part of the blade. Varieties with grey- or lavender-white flowers are 
common. 
Standards . shorter than the falls, broadly lanceolate with slightly canaliculate haft, either blue- 
purple or white. 
Styles, shorter than the standards, bluntly keeled. 
Crests, small, subquadrate or deltoid, with serrate edge, overlapping. 
Stigma , a triangular, tongue-like projection. 
Filaments, purplish or white. 
Anthers, deep blue or cream. 
Pollen, bluish or cream. 
Capsule, oblong, scarcely twice as long as broad, trigonal with bulging sides, not beaked. 
Cf. Fig. 2 a, p. 23. 
Seeds, large, thin, flat Draped. 
Observations. 
Linnaeus defines this plant by referring to Gmelin, Flora Sibir. 1. p. 28 (1747), who speaks of it 
as a hollow-stemmed Iris, received from Siberia. Linnaeus also quotes from C. Bauhin's Pinax, p. 32, 
the description of an I. pratensis, whose narrow leaves have not the slightly fetid smell of those of 
I. spuria. (The latter was also classed by Bauhin under the name of /. pratensis.) Bauhin in turn 
quotes Clusius’ History of Pannonian Plants (p. 252). The latter’s description is as usual that of an 
acute observer of the living plant, whose habitat is given as Austria. He notes the short capsules, 
which turn almost black with age and open slightly at the apex. This exactly describes the capsules 
of /. sibirica as we now know it. 
This Iris must be carefully distinguished from the Eastern /. orientalis of Thunberg, which 
seems to deserve specific rank. The two plants are very different in appearance, though the flowers 
are very similar (see Plate I). In the European species the flowers are raised well above the foliage, 
sometimes to a height of 3 — 4 feet, while in the Oriental plant the stem is shorter than the leaves. 
Moreover in the former a side shoot is common below the terminal head, which contains 3 or even 
5 flowers on pedicels of varying lengths up to 3 inches. I. orientalis, on the other hand, rarely has 
more than the single terminal head of two flowers and the pedicels are shorter. The capsule is long, 
angular and narrow instead of short, rounded and comparatively broad as in I. sibirica (cf. Fig. 2). 
The seeds of the latter are flat and large, somewhat D-shaped, while those of I. orientalis are smaller, 
thicker and indeed almost cubical. 
Although it is easy to distinguish the typical European plant from that which is here described 
as I. orientalis and which, moreover, certainly breeds true from seed, it is by no means so easy to 
define the distribution of the two plants. Herbarium specimens alone are extremely unconvincing, 
for the capsules and seeds are usually wanting and it is in these that the real difference lies. 
Without them, it is impossible to say whether the Far Eastern forms from Manchuria and Corea 
should really be classed as I. sibirica or I. orientalis. To add to the difficulty, I have never yet 
been able to obtain either plants or seeds of any form from Eastern Asia on the authenticity of 
which I could absolutely rely. It is, however, true that seeds, which I have received as being those 
of Corean plants, have been of the small cubical type, characteristic of /. orientalis. It is true, too, 
that all the herbarium specimens from the Far East have stems that are barely, if at all, longer 
than the leaves, a point in which they resemble I. orientalis. Of the spathes it is impossible to 
speak with certainty, for it is difficult to say whether a dried spathe of I. sibirica or /. orientalis 
was scarious or herbaceous when it was alive’. 
If we accept the theory that I. sibirica is confined to Europe, the question arises as to how 
the name sibirica came to be applied to a European plant. An answer to this question is that 
the Far Eastern plant was probably confused with the European specimens. Pallas’ specimens (BM) 
show that it was known in Europe in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Linnaeus, as 
usual, took the name from another author, Gmelin, and did not base it on first hand knowledge. 
Of /. sibirica many garden forms are known, which may or may not be peculiar to definite 
localities, for differences of soil easily account for differences in the length and breadth of the stem 
and leaves. Such forms, therefore, as acuta, a dwarf plant with narrow foliage, scarcely deserve to 
be distinguished by name. Still less right has the name Jlexruosa to be recognised, for it only represents 
1 These show more clearly in the drawings of I. orientalis , I. Wilsoni, I. Forrestii and I. chrysographcs, Plates I — IV, than in 
that of I. sibirica. 
* At the same time, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is by no means impossible that /. sibirica and I. orientalis 
are not really two distinct species but merely different combinations of certain pairs of Mendelian characters, such for instance 
as the flat or cubical shape of the seeds. If we were to accept this hypothesis, we should not be able to deny that there might 
possibly exist in Eastern Asia plants with the spathes and inflorescence of I. sibirica and with the capsule, seeds and relative 
length of stem of I. orientalis. 
