The Apogon Section 
59 
certainly identical with the plant that now grows, and which I have myself collected, in the marshes 
between Hy£res and the sea. Moreover, in a later work (Flor. Fran«j. ed. iii. (1805), P- 239) both 
spathulata and maritima are given as synonyms of /. spuria. 
Recently, I have flowered a few specimens from Vias in the neighbourhood of Agde (H^rault), 
which proved not to agree with the Hytbres plant but to possess short stem-leaves barely reaching more 
than two-thirds up each internode. 
It is therefore impossible to say that one form exists in Austria and one in the south of France, for 
the Vias plant seems identical in all respects with the Austrian subbarbata. Moreover, the Spanish 
specimens, though they are as slender in their growth as is the Hyeres form, have their stem-leaves 
only barely equal to the length of the internodes. In Algeria is found a form, which is apparently only 
a larger edition of the Spanish plant, while the Danish island of Saltholmen contains another very 
similar form. On the other hand, specimens from the neighbourhood of Rochefort (Char, infer.) are in 
some cases identical with the Hyeres examples and in others as large again. 
In this connection it should be remembered that the actual size is of little value as a criterion. So 
much depends on the weather and on the soil as well as on the position in which the plants have 
grown. As an example of this, I may point out that the seeds produced by a certain form of /. spuria 
from Kashmir were only half the size in the dry year 1911 that they had been in the wet season 
of 1910. 
If the European forms of /. spuria are difficult to distinguish, those found in Asia are still more 
puzzling. How, for instance, are we to account for the fact that the Iris which Dr Fomin described 
under the name of /. Carthaliniae 1 as growing wild in the Caucasus region at Mzchet and in the district 
of Gori in the province of Tiflis is also common in the neighbourhood of Srinagar in Kashmir ? We 
must remember that several agencies may have been at work in the dissemination of these Irises. In 
the first place they are almost certainly self-fertilised and produce large quantities of fertile seeds, which 
moreover imprison sufficient air inside their loose parchment-like o.uter coat to enable them to float in 
water. In the second place, the fact that even in such remote regions as Kumul in Mongolia Irises are 
cultivated in the Khan's palace gardens’ seems to show that the hand of man may not have been without 
its influence on the present distribution of Irises in Asia. 
Following a plan which seems on the whole the best adapted to the circumstances, we must be 
content to define /. spuria rather as the abstraction of the common qualities of a number of local forms 
than as an individual plant. It will then be differentiated as follows : — Outer segments beardless but 
often pubescent, panduriform, the constriction between the haft and the blade being more or less narrow ; 
leaves rigid, thick, ribbed, linear-ensiform, emitting a slightly foetid odour when bruised ; stem round or 
very slightly compressed, bearing when in full vigour one or more lateral spicate heads besides the 
terminal head of two flowers ; spathes broadly lanceolate, green ; capsule with a double ridge at each 
angle and a gradually tapering neck 1 ; seeds with a loose, papery, outer skin. 
The most striking feature is the shape of the ovary (see Fig. 5, p. 58), which at once distinguishes 
any form of spuria from all other species except /. graminea, /. humilis, /. Sintenisii and I. Kerncriana 
among European and Asiatic plants and three American species of very different habit, viz. : — /. fulva , 
I. hexagona and 7 . foliosa. The latter with their flowers set in the axils of the leaves can be separated 
at once but the four European and Asiatic species are much more easily confused. They may be 
separated as follows : — 
{ Stem not produced. 
Stem produced. 
Stem producing one or more lateral heads of flowers. 
Stem only producing a single terminal head of flowers. 
( Stem flattened with distinct lateral flanges. 
\ Stem round or very slightly flattened. 
{ Spathe valves sharply keeled. 
Spathe valves rounded, not sharply keeled. 
I. humilis (p. 68). 
1. 
/. spuria (pp. 59 — 65, where 
an account of the various 
subspecies will be found). 
2. 
I. graminea (p. 65). 
3- 
/. Sintenisii (p. 69). 
I. Kerneriana 4 (p. 70). 
Forms of /. spuria 
Synonym. 
I. fl spuria var. maritima. 
(Plate XVII 0 , the Hytres form of I. spuria.) 
I. maritima, Lamarck, Flor. Fr. ed. I. p. 497 (1795). 
1 Fomin in Monit. Jard. Bot. Tiflis, 1909, no. 14, p. 44 ’ 
8 See Douglas Carruthers in The Geographical Journal, xxxix. no. 6 (1912), p- 541- 
1 One of the difficulties encountered in trying to identify the various spuria Irises that have been described lies in the fact 
that some authors seem to have confused the tapering neck of the ovary with the short thick perianth tube, into which the 
neck expands. 
4 I have only seen herbarium specimens of this species and it is not always easy to see from these whether the spathes are 
sharply keeled. The foliage of /. Kerneriana is probably also more flimsy and grass-like. 
8—2 
