1875 The Gardeners' Chronicles: Iris Rubromarginata

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/83808#page/538/mode/1up

New Garden Plants.

Iris (Pogoniris) rubro-marginata, Baker, n. sp*

This is a well-marked new species of the fugacious-flowered vernal Irises, cultivated in the collection of Herr Leichtlin, from the neighbourhood of Scutari, where it was gathered by M. Barbey, of Geneva, the son-in-law of the distinguished botanist, Boissier. The specimen from which these notes were made was sent by him to me by post in the first week of April of the present year. In its long tube, and the shape of its two rows of perianthial segments, it is most like Iris pumila, but in other respects (the size of its flowers, and the fact that there is a pair of them, one following the other in expansion) it agrees with pseudo-pumila and nudicauUs. The flower, though large, is not at all handsome, and in all these the flower is too fugacious for them to be general favourites, when there are so many other species in which it is fairly persistent. The most striking note about it, from the horticultural point of view, is the red edge of its leaves and spathe-valves.

Whole plant, when flowering, not more than 4 inches above the surface of the soil, quite glabrous. Leaves ensiform-falcate, not at all glaucous, green, with a distinct red edge, 2-3 inches long at the flowering time, i/2 inch broad. Flowers two to a root, one expanding after the other. Stem absolutely none, the ovary being placed direct on the crown of the root-stock. Spathe-valves lanceolate-navicular, reaching quite to the top of the tube, 2 i/2-3 inches long, 1-1/4 inch broad, green and almost herbaceous in texture, acutely keeled, and both keel and edges with a distinct red-purple line, like the leaves. Ovary obling, green, 1/2 inch deep; tube 2 inches long, green, tinged with lurid purple in the upper half; limb 2-2 1/2 inches deep, a uniform luris purple; segments of both rows oblong-spathulate, the falls with a reflexed limb as long as the claw, which is 3/4 inch broad, eroso-dentate at the tip, and bearded down the lower half of the face with a row of purple hairs; the standards erect, an inch broad at the middle; stigmas an inch long, the same colour as the perianth, the recurved points deltoid, small, and little-toothed. --J.G.B.

For more information on historic Irises visit the Historic Iris Preservation Society at http://www.historiciris.org/

-- BobPries - 27 Dec 2018