14 The subdivisions of the genus and its geographical distribution 
as typical, and a number of other species, which can hardly be grouped together at all in the present 
state of our knowledge. 
We come next to those Irises in which the central ridge develops into a raised crest, the top of 
which is more or less irregular but which does not split up into hair-like threads. (Cf. I. tectorum , 
Plate XXIV.) 
To these the name of Evansia’ is applied, and with the exception of the American /. cristata and 
its subspecies /. lacustris , all are natives of the Far East and are found between Kulu in the west 
and Japan in the east The single American species differs widely from the other Evansias in the 
absence of any produced stem and in its peculiar seeds (see Plate XLVIII, no. 13), and might conceivably 
be classed by itself. 
In Asia Minor, Syria and Persia are found some species of Iris to which the name Oncocyclus 9 
has been given. They are distinguished by their single-flowered stems, by their peculiar seeds (see 
Plate XLVIII, no. 8) in the possession of which they all agree, and by the fact that a broad strip 
along the haft of the falls is covered with a diffuse beard. 
Further east, with their centre in Bokhara, come a few species differing chiefly from the Oncocyclus 
group in having more than one flower in the single head that their stems produce, and a linear instead 
of a diffuse beard. The standards are also usually bearded, though this character is not constant, and 
occurs, moreover, irregularly in some Pogoniris, e.g. in forms of I. germanica, in /. Reichenbachii , etc. 
and in Oncocyclus species. 
To the south of the great Karakoram and Himalayan Ranges, we find another subgenus which 
may perhaps be not inappropriately called Pseudoregel ias. They differ from the Regelias in having 
a more compact rhizome, a less conspicuous aril on the seeds and in their habit of producing their 
flowers when the foliage is only beginning to develop. 
One plant, /. dichotoma , seems to call for a subgenus to itself, so different is it in every way from 
all other known species. It has been aptly called Pardanthopsis, for its likeness to Pardanthus ( Belam - 
canda) chinensis is unmistakable. It is a native of Manchuria and Northern China. 
There now remain of the rhizomatous species only the extensive class of Pogoniris or Bearded 
Irises, which are distributed over Central and Southern Europe and North Africa, through Asia Minor 
and Persia to China and North-West India. None are known to be indigenous in the New World, 
though a few may have escaped from cultivation there, e.g. I. albicans which was found by Dr Rose 
of Washington, D.C., growing on the Sierra Madre in Mexico. Owing to the tenacious hold on life 
possessed by the fleshy rhizomes of Pogoniris, the question of their distribution has probably become 
more complicated than that of any other section of the genus. The fact that /. germanica atropurpurea 
is the commonest semi-cultivated Iris in some parts of the south of France and in Khatmandu in Nepal 
gives some idea of the difficulty of determining its origin and distribution. 
Bulbous Irises are divided into two groups according as the bulb in its resting state has or 
has not attached to its base a number of fleshy, thick unbranched roots (see Plate XL, J. alata , 
where the brown roots are those that remained unbranched through the resting season). Those 
species, whose bulbs possess these fleshy roots, form the Juno subgenus. Those plants, which 
produce only a simple bulb with none of these roots attached to it, belong to the Xiphion 
subgenus, of which the reticulata group is an important subdivision. The Xiphions proper, which 
comprise what are commonly known as the Spanish Irises, have bulbs with thin membranous outer 
tunics and are confined to Spain and Portugal, North Africa and Sicily with two possible extensions, 
of /. xiphium along the south coast of France to Beziers and of /. juncea along the coast-line of 
Liguria. 
The reticulata Irises have their headquarters in Asia Minor and Transcaucasia, possibly with 
two outlying species in Turkestan near Werny (Verni) 3 . 
The Juno group is represented all round the Mediterranean except from the Pyrenees to 
Macedonia. Its members are abundant in Asia Minor, while others occur in Persia and through 
Afghanistan to the N.W. Indian Frontier. 
Two cunous Inses still remain, /. sisyrinchium, which of itself constitutes the Gynandriris section 
and which has the peculiarity of possessing a corm and not a bulb for its rootstock, and /. nepalensis 
and its subspecies /. Collettii, which are perhaps distantly related to the Juno group, with which 
they agree m the possession of thick roots in the resting state. I. nepalensis has for its rootstock 
a kind of plate-like rhizome to which the roots are attached and which produces the growing 
bud in the centre of a close covering of the fibrous remains of old decayed leaves (see Fig 25 
/. sisyrinchium is perhaps the most widely distributed of all Irises, for it has spread to the 
sea near Lisbon in the west and to Kashmir and to Quetta in the east, while /. nepalensis ranges 
only from Simla through the Shan States into Yunnan. 
So far as we know at present, no Irises are found wild to the south of the Equator. Many 
plants occur which closely resemble them except that they possess no perianth tube and have their 
segments inserted direct on the ovary, so that they are classed as Moraeas. 
1 See p. 98. • g ee p, 1Q y 
3 The position of / Kolpakowskiana and of I. WinkUri in the genus is still somewhat uncertain. 
