The Pogoniris Section 165 
The variety is well known in gardens, where it flowers in May with I. germanica . Hitherto, it 
has been given specific rank but it is difficult to separate it by any character except colour from 
/. germanica , with which it agrees in its inflorescence (cf. Fig. 21, p. 163), in the character of the spathes, 
in the narrow leaves that attain some length before midwinter and in the formation of the tube and 
ovary. The similarity between the two plants had already struck me and my impression of their 
identity was confirmed last year (191 1 ) by the flowering of a plant, which I had obtained from Florence 
through the kindness of Messrs Barr and Sons. It occurred among a batch of plants that were obtained 
as specimens of the source of “ Orris Root " and, besides showing that I. germanica and /. pallida are 
used indiscriminately for that purpose, they also provided an exact purple counterpart of I. florentina. 
This Florentine example of I. germanica had slightly more scarious spathes and longer, narrower falls 
than those of the purple form most commonly known in English gardens. These two characters are 
typical of the variety florentina , as is also the slender stem. 
/. germanica var. florentina is distinguished from /. albicans by the following differences : 
(1) Leaves narrower, paler and more yellow green. 
(2) Flowers not pure white, especially on the blade of the falls, which show traces of pale blue or 
purple colouration. 
(3) Spathes nearly wholly brown-scarious at flowering time. 
(4) The lower lateral branch on the stem is 3 — 4 in. long, whereas in /. albicans it is much 
shorter. 
(5) The standards bear near the base on the inner side of the haft a few straggling white hairs 
which are never present in I. albicans. 
[N.B. It should be noticed that the photograph named /. florentina in Lynch, Book of the Iris, 
p. 150, is obviously a mistake and represents /. pallida. This is clearly shown by the entirely scarious 
spathes of the undeveloped buds and by the short thick-set beard.] 
Observations. 
The origin of I. germanica, which is perhaps the most widely cultivated of all Irises, is shrouded in 
mystery and is indeed a problem of which we can hardly hope to find any solution. As in the case of 
many other Irises of the Pogoniris section, it is extremely difficult, when dealing only with herbarium 
specimens, to separate the various local forms, which seem undoubtedly to exist. As garden plants they 
are easily distinguishable and the series stretches from Fontarabie in the West through Europe and Asia 
Minor to Kashmir and Nepal in the East. 
The various forms have already been described but attempts to ascertain whether all or any of 
them will come true from seed have not hitherto met with much success. In England at all events it 
is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain seeds, even when the flowers are carefully pollinated. 
For some reason or other, the reproductive organs are often malformed and the pollen is for the most 
part imperfect, so that the sterility of the plants is easy to understand. In warmer climates there is 
presumably less difficulty in obtaining seeds of /. germanica , for slight colour variations abound for 
instance in the south of France, where nearly every wayside station near Tarascon and in the Camargue, 
has long lines of slightly different forms. Among all these the common English type with flowers of 
two shades of distinctly blue purple is perhaps the least common, for the predominating colour is a 
rather redder purple. 
It must be admitted that we do not know to which of these many forms Linnaeus gave the name 
of I. germanica and it is indeed probable that his species was based on a confusion between some form 
of /. germanica and /. aphylla. This becomes apparent when we try to trace the plant back to the 
earliest mention of it. We find first that Linnaeus quotes the Hortus Cliffortianus (Amsterdam, 1737), 
which in its turn refers us to Johannes Bauhin’s Historia Plantarum Universalis (1650-51). In this 
latter work, on page 708, we find an account of an Iris vulgaris violacea seu purpurea hortensis et 
sylvestris and on the next page a figure of the plant, which has the characteristic inflorescence of what 
is now commonly grown as the type of /. germanica (see Fig. 21, p. 163). Bauhin’s account is not, 
however, first hand, for he quotes Valerius Cordus’ Historiae Plantarum (1561), where we at last find 
the origin of the confusion. 
Cordus (vol. 1. p. 133) in fact describes two plants, the first of which he calls saliva or vulgaris 
and the second silvestris. He distinguishes them by saying that the former has leaves that remain 
green throughout the winter 1 , which is a characteristic of /. germanica, while silvestris has no leaves in 
winter, a six-grooved ovary, a shorter stem and more purple flowers. He adds also that it blooms 
three weeks earlier than satwa. This I. silvestris is almost certainly I. aphylla L., a Central European 
plant common in Bohemia and Hungary. 
Here then we have the explanation of Joh. Bauhin’s confused phrase I. vulgaris violacea seu 
purpurea hortensis et silvestris. The violet-flowered garden plant we may presume to be /. germanica 
and the sylvan purple-flowered Iris is /. aphylla. The confusion between the two plants is kept up by 
1 “Cum sativae folia hyemis sevitiae contumaciter resistant. 
