Otto Stapf offers the following remarks inCurtis's Botanical Magazine, Tab. 8340. vol.136. 1910 with a color illustration. "The Iris here figured was discovered by Mr. E. H. Wilson in Western China on behalf of Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, and the material on which our figure was based was supplied from a plant which flowered with them in July, 1909. Another plant, presented by them to Kew, also flowered simultaneously in the Iris collection, where it has grown freely under the conditions suitable for the well-known I. sibirica, Linn., which it resembles in habit. It appears to be quite hardy, and promises to be a useful addition to the lists of garden Irises. In 1907 Mr. Wilson rediscovered this plant in Western Hupeh, growing in grasslands near Fang Hsien, at about 7,000 ft. above sea-level. But in addition to the form here figured there is another and nearly related form, which flowered with Messrs. Veitch in 1907, collected by Mr. Wilson on their behalf at Fang in Central China, of more robust habit and with wider spathes which extend as far as or beyond the top of the perianth-tube. This stouter form has been distinguished by Mr. Wright as a variety, var. major, of I. Wilsonii, but the venation of the leaves is somewhat different, and it may be necessary, when more ample material is available, to treat this robust plant as a distinct species. As gathered in a wild state and also under cultivation all the specimens of Mr. Wilson's two plants have pale yellow flowers. But it has to be remarked that in 1906 Mr. Forrest collected, on the eastern flank of the Tali range in Western Yunnan, an Iris with bright purplish-blue flowers as in I. sibirica, but which only differs from I. Wilsonii in other respects in having more finely acute leaves and wider perhaps less herbaceous spathes. This blue form is met with in Mountain pastures at 10,000 feet above sea-level.Description.-Herb, rhizome short, its apex crowned with the fibrous remains of the leaf-sheath. Leaves at the base 1-2 feet long, 3-4 lin. wide, the tip short, slightly obliquely incurved, bright green, smooth, unequally veined at least in the lower portion, 3-4 of the nerves towards the center more prominent than the others. Stem 8-12 in. high, 2- or 1-flowered, cylindrical, 1-foliate, the leaf about 6 in. long and arising below the middle, like the basal leaves except as regards its size. Spathes somewhat herbaceous, one usually produced in a short blade, 2 ¼-4 in. long, 1-2 lin. wide. Pedicels unequal, the longer reaching 5 in. in length. Perianth-tube green, 4-5 lin. long, bluntly 3-gonous; outer segments nearly 2 in. long, with a reflexed, oblong-or obovate-elliptic limb 8-10 lin. long, veined with purple below the middle, claw somewhat shorter than the limb, 3-5 lin. wide, copiously veined with purple towards the edge; inner segments oblong-lanceolate, narrowed to a slender claw, ¾-1 ¼ in. long, 3-4 lin. wide, yellow. Filaments 5-6 lin. long; anthers whitish, rather longer than the filaments. Ovary bluntly 3-cornered, in flower 8-9 lin. long; style-arms subspathulate-linear, 3-4 lin. wide above, yellow lobes of the crest wide ovate, erosely toothed; stigma wide triangular. Capsule triquetrous, oblong, slightly narrowed to both ends, 1 ¼-1 ¾ in. long. Seeds oblique, triquetrous-ovoid, truncate at the tip, dark-tawny, 2-2 ½ lin. long." |