The Apogon Section 
95 
Pedicel, about i in. long. 
Ovary, trigonal, with a groove running down each angle. 
Tube, funnel-shaped, less than i in. long. 
Falls. The suborbicular blade is about as long as the narrow haft. The colour of the blade is a 
bluish purple, mottled with paler patches and veined with thin but conspicuous darker veins. The 
signal patch is white with some trace of yellow in the centre. The haft is whitish with yellow-brown 
reticulations. 2 in. long. 
Standards, £ in. long, oblanceolate, erect, more or less tridentate, with the central tooth much longer 
and larger than the laterals. (It is possible that the standards are sometimes not toothed ; this was 
apparently the case in Foster’s specimen.) 
Styles, narrow. 
Crests, large, subquadrate. 
Stigma, entire, semi-circular in outline. 
Filaments, very short. 
Anthers, 
Pollen, 
Capsule, | — 1 in. long, much rounded trigonal, the sides being hardly at all concave. 
Seeds, thick, compressed dark red-brown discs, in a single row in each loculus. 
Observations. 
This little known Iris is apparently no longer in cultivation in Europe. It flowered once with 
Foster at Shelford but it needed a hothouse temperature in July to induce the flower to open. Some 
details of the description here given are taken from Foster’s MS. notes. 
In many ways this Iris resembles the American forms of I. setosa, which are usually known as 
/. Hookeri or setosa canadensis. It differs from that plant, however, in having linear leaves, conspicuously 
unequal green spathe valves of a thick rigid texture, a rounder, less sharply trigonal ovary and capsule 
and disc-shaped seeds. 
In Van Gael’s Sertum Botanicum 1. there is a figure of this Iris, together with the statement that 
it was first known in Europe as flowering in May, 1828, in the garden of David Falconer, at Carlowrie, 
near Edinburgh. 
Nothing is known of its requirements in cultivation but it would probably require a warm position 
in soil that was not too dry in spring and early summer. 
XV. /. verna. 
This anomalous species is perhaps best described by saying that it has the appearance and habit of 
a small /. pumila but has not the multicellular beard, which would obtain admission for it to the 
Pogoniris section. 
I. VERNA 
Linn. Sp. PI. ed. I. p. 39 (1753). 
Ait. Hort. Kew. ed. I. vol. I. p. 73 (1789). 
Michaux, FI. Bor. Amer. I. p. 22 (1803). 
•Sweet, Brit. FI. Gdn. I. t. 68 (1824). 
Lodd. Cab. t. 1855 (1833). 
Klatt in Linnaea XXXIV. p. 596 (1866). 
A. Gray, Manual, ed. v. p. 516 (1867). 
Baker in J. L. S. XVI. p. 144 (1877). 
Hdk. Irid. p. 16 (1892). 
Britt, and Brown, 111 . FI. N. U. S. I. p. 452 (1896). 
•Lynch, Book of Iris, p. 87 (1904). 
•Bot. Mag. t. 8159 (1907). 
Pluk. *Phytogr. t 196, Fig. 6 (1691). 
Almag. p. 198 (1696;. 
Synonym. 
I. nana, Pers. Syn. Plant, p. 53 (1805). 
DISTRIBUTION. The Eastern United States. It is said to be most frequent in the dry uplands of the maritime 
pinebelt. 
Virginia. No locality, 17 — , Clayton in Herb. Gronovius (BM). 
Richmond, 1832, Macnab (BM). 
Massanutten Mt, 1893, Heller (E). 
Kentucky. Bath Co., Short (K). 
No locality, 1833, Griswold (E) (B). 
Tennessee. Warmspring Mts, 1842, Rugel (BM). 
North Carolina. Wilmington, Hb. Hooker (K). 
Biltmore, 1896 (K). 
Georgia. N. slope of Pine Mts, Meriwether Co., 1901, Harper (BM) (B). 
Alabama. No locality, Buckley (BM). 
