The Pogoniris Section 
155 
Observations , see p. 1 54 - 
The plant is unknown in cultivation but remarkable as growing at a higher elevation (18,000 feet) 
than any other known Iris. 
IV, The larger European Pogoniris. 
There are several reasons which make it almost impossible to give a satisfactory account of the 
larger members of the Pogoniris group. 
In the first place they are among the most decorative of all Irises and have therefore been in 
cultivation for centuries with all the consequent opportunities for escape and relapse into semi-wild 
conditions. 
In the second place the vitality of the rhizomes is such that they will grow in almost any position 
and stand journeys that are almost invariably fatal to the more slender and less fleshy rhizomes of the 
Apogon Section. Their wide distribution has therefore been facilitated. 
A few instances will suffice to show the difficulties that are consequently to be encountered and 
the apparently insoluble problems that are involved. 
Let us take first the commonest of all Irises, namely I. gemianica, which is now so widely distributed 
all over Europe, and we are at once met by the fact that no specimen of this has ever yet been found 
so far from some existing or ruined habitation that it seemed unlikely that the plant could be an escape 
from cultivation. All that we can say — and this statement is only based on the analogy of the behaviour 
of other species — is that it is probably a native of the shores of the Mediterranean or of some country 
further south, for nowhere else in the Old World do we find Irises that retain their foliage in winter. 
The plants of Central Europe such as /. pumila , I. aphylla, and those of mountainous regions, such 
as the Balkan I. Reichenbachii, do not put forth their new leaves until spring and yet /. gemianica is 
never leafless in winter. 
If this conjecture is correct, we shall not be led by the presence of at least two forms of I. gemianiea 
in India to suppose that the species is of Eastern origin. For it is a curious fact that in Kashmir in 
the neighbourhood of Srinagar that form of I. gemianica is exceedingly common, which Foster named 
Kharput after the town in Asia Minor from which he received it 1 , while in Khatmandu in Nepal its 
place is taken by the form which is commonly known in Western Europe by the name of atropurpurea. 
This latter is very widely distributed in the South of France, where it is more common even than the 
more distinctly blue-purple Iris called by convention in English gardens the type of I. gemianica. For 
instance, it grows by thousands on the slopes of the castle hill at Beaucaire opposite Tarascon and at 
several wayside stations across the Camargue. 
In support of the theory that I. germanica spread to India and was not distributed thence to us, 
it must be remembered that the passes of the North-West were for centuries the only high road into 
India and there are apparently other instances in the flora of Kashmir of plants that can only be 
importations from the West. 
Another puzzle has long been offered us in the wide distribution of a white Iris, to which by the 
rules of precedence the name of I. albicans should be given. It is found in Spain, in the Canaries 
and has even spread thence into Mexico*, but it is also found in Sicily, in Greece, in Asia Minor and 
even in Persia. In one place on the south coast of France, between Agde and Cette, it has even 
given its name to a locality, if it be true that Les Onglous is only a local name for Les Ongles, 
which means Irises by reference to the claws of the segments. At any rate, this Iris grows there in 
millions and is used to hold together the sand banks that surround the vineyards which cover the low 
ground down to the actual shore of the Mediterranean. Local floras name the plant I. florentina but 
an expedition to the locality showed at once that it is I. albicans. 
Plate XXXV shows this I. albicans side by side with a recent introduction under the name of 
/. Madonna , which was said to come from Arabia (see also p. 162). When I watched the two plants 
developing in my garden, I could not help thinking that they were only colour varieties of the same 
species and this supposition was confirmed by the discovery in the Paris herbarium of specimens of 
both that were found growing together on a mountain in the Yemen in Arabia as long ago as 1837 • 
This discovery and the fact that I. albicans is the common ornament of Mahomedan cemeteries 
gave the solution of the puzzle and we see now that the wide distribution of / . albicans is due to the 
fact that the Mahomedans took it everywhere with them as a sacred plant or at least as a conventional 
ornament for graveyards. 
These few instances indicate sufficiently some of the difficulties encountered in dealing with this 
section of the Iris genus. These difficulties are further increased by the fact that what appear to be 
species of Pogoniris are not nearly so widely separated as the Apogon species. The best proof of this 
* This is also the Iris which was planted on the monument to the Officers of the Guards' Brigade who fell at Inkerman hut 
it is not known whence the plants were obtained. 
* Cf. Sierra Madre, Mexico, 19 — , Rose (W). 
* A letter from Sprenger, dated April 17, 1896, when he was still employed by the firm of Dammann and Co., of San 
Giovanni a Teduccio, records the first flowering of both the blue and the white forms, which had been imported from the 
Yemen. (Foster MS.) 
20 — 2 
