Iris boissieri


Iris boissieri, is a species in the genus Iris, it is also in the subgenus Xiphium. It is from Europe, mainly Spain and Portugal. It has blue-purple flowers with a yellow beard.

Description

It flowers in June. It normally has only one flower per stem. The flower is blue-purple, with a yellow or orange beard. It grows between 30 and 40 cm tall. The leaves appear in spring.
It is the only bearded iris in the 'Xiphion' section.

Taxonomy

It is also known as the 'yellowbeard iris'.
Named after Edmond Boissier.
In 1877, Mr A.W. Tait sent the bulbs to Sir Michael Foster who grew them in the UK. It was first described in 1885 by Portuguese botanist Julio Augusto Henriques in Boletim da Sociedade Broteriana Vols. 1-28.
It was also described by Mr Foster in 'The Gardeners' Chronicles' of 1887, vol. ii. page38.
It was then described in Curtis's Botanical Magazine 7097 in 1890 again by Mr Foster.
It was verified by United States Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Service on 4 April 2003 and then updated on 2 December 2004.

Distribution and habitat

Iris boissieri is native to Europe.

Range

It was originally found in the Serra do Gerês, Northwest Spain, within.

Habitat

It likes to grows in rocky shallow soils, at an altitude of above sea level.

Conservation

It was on the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants. It was listed on the European Red List of Vascular Plants in 2011 as Data Deficient.
Very few plants were found in Spain in 2004 and less than a 10,000 plants were found in Portugal. Also these numbers were gradually going down as well.
Iris boissieri was listed on Annex IV of the Habitats Directive. It was therefore assessed as 'Critically Endangered'.

Cultivation

It is best grown in a bulb frame.
There is a specimen in the Kew herbarium, collected by Winkler in 1876.
There is also a specimen in the 'Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques' in Genève, collected in 1899.

Hybrids and cultivars

Emily Jean Stevens was a hybridiser of Iris boissieri and Iris juncea in the 1950s.