The Apogon Section 
78 
Description. 
Rootstock , a stout rhizome with pink flesh, clothed in the fibrous remains of old leaves. 
Leaves erect, ensiform, 2 feet or more in length, slightly glaucous, especially near the base, and 
bearing a conspicuous midrib. 
Stem, 2 — 3 feet high, much branched, sometimes with equal lateral branches on either side of 
the same point on the stem. 
Spathe valves, very like those of /. versicolor, oblong, green with brown but scarcely scarious 
edge. The outer valve is sharply keeled, 2\ — 3^ in. long, the inner of equal length but not keeled. 
3 — 5 flowered. 
Pedicel, 1 — 2 in. of varying lengths, often too slender to hold the ripe capsule erect. 
Ovary , trigonal, with hollow sides and a narrow groove down each angle, £ in. long. 
Tube, slightly lighter green than the ovary, from which it is not separated by any constriction. 
£ in. long. 
Falls. The haft is broad and narrows suddenly at the base, near which it usually, if not always, 
bears two raised ridges or flanges, which fit into hollows in the standards. The central line is slightly 
raised to form a greenish-yellow, pubescent ridge. The blade is broadly lanceolate or ovate or sub- 
orbicular, and usually, but not always, veined with brown-purple or violet on a yellow or creamy 
ground ; or it may bear brown-purple mottlings between the veins. A distinct patch of a deeper shade 
of yellow is often conspicuous on the blade. 
Standards, pale yellow, of varying outline, sometimes a mere point as in /. setosa, but usually spoon- 
shaped, about an inch long, lanceolate-unguiculate, winged at the base. 
Styles, broad, keeled, sometimes oblong, in other specimens almost triangular. 
Crests, small, quadrate, either of a pale concolor yellow, or veined with purple. 
Stigma, a prominent tongue. 
Filaments, cream, slightly longer than the anthers. 
Anthers, cream to orange, edged with dark purple or wholly purple-brown. 
Pollen, cream. 
Capsule, 1^ — 2^ in length, oblong, narrowing gradually to a short beak at the apex. 
Seeds, flattened, D-shaped or nearly circular, with a smooth, light brown outer skin. 
Observations. 
This widely distributed Iris is undoubtedly liable to considerable variation in the size, shape and 
colour of the segments of the flower, but it seems inadvisable to distinguish by name some of the 
forms while others are passed over. 
For instance, Boreau I.c. gives as a difference between the varieties Bastardi and acoriformis that 
the former is not blotched with a deeper shade of yellow at the base of the blade, while in the latter 
the deeper coloured blotch is conspicuous. The evidence of seedlings goes to show that the presence 
and absence of this blotch are a Mendelian pair of characters, of which the presence is dominant over 
the absence. Evidence for this is derived from the fact that self-fertilized seed of some wild plants 
obtained from the River Wey near Godaiming gave one plant on which no blotch was apparent. 
Moreover, when this plant was in its turn self-fertilized, all the seedlings were without the blotch. 
Another peculiarity on which a varietal name has been founded is the amount of brown or violet 
veining present on the segments, cf. var. acoriformis Boreau l.c. This character is, however, very 
variable. For instance, this Iris grows extensively along a stream between Hy£res and the sea, and 
a close examination of successive plants growing in close proximity to each other showed that the 
style-crests were either pure yellow or veined with purple, while the anthers were either wholly of a 
deep brown-purple or yellow edged with brown. Moreover, the styles were very variable in shape ; 
in some examples the sides were nearly parallel, while in others the divergence was so great that the 
surface became triangular. 
I have it on the authority of Mr G. Yeld, of York, that the pale ochraceous yellow unblotched 
form, known in gardens as Bastardi, was found by members of his family growing in a field near 
Llanfairfechan in North Wales, and that a certain proportion of seedlings of the golden yellow type 
are pale yellow-flowered forms. I have little doubt that in all the various forms of I. pseudacortis 
we are dealing with various combinations of unit characters, which might be proved to behave in 
accordance with Mendelian principles. 
The statement of Spach (l.c.) that, in his variety acoroides, the usual callosities were not present 
at the base of the haft of the falls is uncorroborated, and may possibly be explained by the fact that 
he may have been dealing with dried herbarium material, in which case it would most probably have 
been difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish them. As, moreover, the plant was said to come from 
America, it is not impossible that Spach mistook for /. pseudacoms a specimen of I. versicolor , which 
in the dried state might well have flowers of a yellow-brown colour, and on which the callosities are 
perhaps less prominent than on I. pseudacorus. 
There is in cultivation in gardens a form of I. pseudacoms with variegated leaves, the yellow edge 
naturally being that towards the centre of each tuft. 
