88 The Apogon Section 
leaves are not constant under different climatic conditions. Of this a striking illustration was afforded 
by the difference between Wilson's specimen from the Min valley in Szechuan (No. 1181) and a plant 
raised from seed brought home from that locality by Wilson himself. In China the flowers appear 
when the leaves are very short 1 , and this actually occurred in some plants of /. ensata, which came into 
flower soon after Christmas 1911, during a spell of mild weather following on the thorough ripening 
that the summer’s drought had given the plants. In England, the plants usually do not flower until 
May or June, when the foliage has already grown to 12 — 18 inches, and when the stems are conse- 
quendy much overtopped by the leaves. 
This variety of /. ensata, which I take to be the typical form, has grown in my garden in the 
form either of imported plants or of seedlings raised from seeds from the following localities : — Japan, 
Szechuan (Wilson no. 1181, 1908), Shantung, Kashmir. 
The second form, which I propose to call var. grandijlora , has much larger flowers, the falls being 
obovate rather than oblanceolate. The ground colour is a pale creamy primrose, delicately veined with 
pale violet. At the edge the veins become diffuse and spread over the whole surface. The standards 
are also broad and of the same pale violet colour. For some reason this Iris is often known in 
catalogues and in gardens as the variety oxypetala , to which name it has, of course, less claim than 
any other known form of I. ensata. The only specimens of this Iris that I have obtained from a 
known locality are a batch of plants raised from seeds sent from Gyantze in Thibet and handed on 
to me by the generosity of the late W. E. Gumbleton. 
The third form of this Iris is one which I have raised from seeds sent to me by Mons. H. Correvon, 
but without any guarantee of their exact provenance. All the plants that I raised agree in having 
short, stiff leaves, with a distinct corkscrew twist, which differentiates them at once from the leaves of 
the other forms, when all are grown side by side. 
The flowers of this third form closely resemble those of the typical plant, except that the veining 
extends further over the blade of the falls, which expand rather more suddenly and then narrows to a 
pointed tip. I am inclined to think that this may be the variety chinensis, which grows abundantly 
on the plains round Pekin. As herbarium specimens it is impossible to separate this variety from the 
typical plant, and it is only occasionally that the variety grandiflora displays its flowers sufficiently well 
in the dried state to allow of its being separated from the other varieties. Pallas' specimens (BM) 
appear to belong to this variety. 
Specimens of /. ensata are very common in herbarium collections, often erroneously identified. 
The stems are so variable in length, both absolutely and in proportion to the leaves, and the appear- 
ance of the plant at flowering time is so totally different to that which it has assumed by the time 
the capsules of seed are mature, that such confusions are almost unavoidable until we are acquainted 
with the peculiarities of the living plant. 
In the dry state, the distinguishing features are the narrow finely-ribbed leaves, often flushed at 
the base with purple, which becomes a deep brown in the course of time, the slender rhizome closely 
covered with coarse, but not fibrous, remains of old leaves and not unlike the rhizome of /. spuria , 
the long, narrow, obscurely-ribbed and usually slightly twisted ovary, and the long, narrow, six-ribbed 
capsule, supported on a long pedicel (see Fig. n, p. 87). 
These characters are common to all the known forms, and serve to distinguish them from any 
other species. 
In cultivation the plant presents no great difficulty. /. ensata will grow in any soil, either in sand 
or in heavy clay, and is moreover unlike some other apogons, in that it has no dislike to lime in the 
soil. Not only is this true in England, but I have found that the soil still remaining attached to the 
roots of plants that have reached me from Central Asia is often strongly impregnated with lime. 
When growth begins in spring, the young leaves appear of a pale yellow, as though they had been 
blanched and only gradually turn to the somewhat grey shade of green that they subsequently assume. 
After flowering, the leaves still grow considerably. In some cases they are stiff and upright and grow 
with a curious spiral twist ; in others the length is greater and the leaves droop until their tips almost 
touch the ground. They remain green until quite late in the autumn, in fact until they are cut down 
by sharp frosts, when they turn to a peculiarly dirty, brownish black, wholly unlike the various shades 
of yellow or red-brown found among the withered leaves of other species. 
The only species to which /. ensata seems to show any affinity are the Western American 
/. longipetala and its relatives /. missouriensis and /. montana. With these it agrees in the characters 
of the rhizome and, to some extent, of the foliage and capsule (the latter being, however, much 
narrower in I. ensata ). The seeds, also, are all of the same type, although those of /. ensata are so 
much smaller and more spherical as to be readily distinguishable from those of the American species. 
It is possible that the Chinese /. Grijsi is also allied to /. ensata, but our ignorance of the seeds 
and capsules of the former makes it impossible to ascertain whether there is any real relationship 
between the two species. 
1 This is proved by many herbarium specimens. 
