# Manual of the New Zealand Flora/Irideæ

Order LXXX. IRIDEÆ.
Perennial herbs, with a tuberous or bulbous or creeping rhizome. Leaves usually all radical, narrow, equitant and distichous. Flowers hermaphrodite, regular or obliquely irregular, solitary and terminal, or in spikes or corymbs or panicles, or clustered, enclosed within 2 spathaceous usually scarious bracts. Perianth superior, petaloid, marcescent; segments 6, in 2 series, imbricate. Stamens 3, epigynous or inserted on the outer perianth-segments; filaments free or united into a tube; anthers 2-celled, opening outwards. Ovary inferior, 3-celled; style filiform, usually 3-fid above; divisions stigmatic at the end, subulate or narrow or broad, sometimes petaloid; ovules numerous, in the inner angle of each cell, anatropous. Fruit a coriaceous 3-celled usually trigonous capsule, loculicidally 3-valved. Seeds usually numerous, albuminous; embryo short, cylindric.
A large order, comprising nearly 60 genera and about 700 species, dispersed over the whole world, but most abundant and varied in South Africa, plentiful in South Europe, not infrequent in America, comparatively rare in Asia. The order includes few useful species. Some are said to be purgative and diuretic, and the dried stigmas of the saffron (Crocus sativus) are a well-known dye. Many of the species are cultivated in gardens on account of the beauty of their flowers, especially of the genera Iris, Crocus, Ixia, and Gladiolus. The single New Zealand genus extends to Australia on the one side, and South America on the other.
1. LIBERTIA, Spreng.
Perennial herbs with a short creeping rhizome and long fibrous roots. Leaves numerous, densely crowded at the base of the stem, distichously imbricate, equitant, linear or ensiform, flat, rigid. Flowering-stems erect, simple or branched; cauline leaves few. Flowers on slender pedicels, clustered in the axils of sheathing bracts, forming a corymbose-paniculate or subumbellate inflorescence. Perianth regular, tube wanting; segments 6, spreading, free to the base, the 3 inner rather longer and broader. ​Stamens 3; filaments free or slightly connate at the base; anthers linear-sagittate, versatile. Ovary 3-celled; ovules many in each cell; style short, with 3 linear-subulate spreading branches. Capsule broadly oblong or obovoid or globose, 3 valved. Seeds angled or compressed, smooth or foveolate.
A small genus of 8 or 10 species, found in New Zealand, Australia, and extratropical South America. One of the New Zealand species extends to Australia and Tasmania, the remaining two are endemic.
| Leaves ⅙–⅓ in. broad. Flower-clusters many, panicled. Capsule ⅓–½ in. long | 1. L. ixioides. |
| Leaves ⅓–½ in. Flower-clusters many, panicled. Capsule ½–¾ in. long | 2. L. grandiflora. |
| Leaves 1/12–1/6 in. Flower-clusters solitary or rarely 2–3. Capsule globose, ⅕ in. diam. | 3. L. pulchella. |
1. L. ixioides, Spreng. Syst. i. 168.—Rhizome very short. Leaves numerous, densely tufted. 1–2 ft. long, ⅙–⅓ in. broad, narrow-linear, acuminate, rigid and coriaceous, striate; margins cartilaginous, smooth or very obscurely and minutely scabrid. Flowering-stem longer or shorter than the leaves, usually with 1 or 2 cauline leaves below the inflorescence. Panicle broad; branches alternate from the axils of membranous sheathing bracts, bearing subumbellate clusters of 2–10 rather large white flowers on long pedicels. Perianth variable in size, ½–1 in. diam.; the 3 outer segments oblong or elliptic, often greenish on the outside; the 3 inner larger and broader, broadly oblong or orbicular, pure white. Capsule broadly oblong or obovoid, ⅓–½ in. long.—A. Cunn. Precur. n. 307; Raoul, Choix, 41; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 252; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 274. L. restioides, Klatt in Linnæa, xxxi. (1861–62) 383. L. orbicularis, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xv. (1883) 329. Sisyrinchium ixioides, Forst. Prodr. n. 325; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 161. Moræa ixioides, Thunb. Diss. Moræa, 8. Ferraria ixioides, Willd. Sp. Plant. iii. 582. Renealmia ixioides, Ker-Gawl. Gen. Irid. 27. Nematostigma ixioides, A. Dietr. Sp. Plant. ii. 510.
Var. a.—Bracts all lanceolate.
Var. b.—Upper bracts ovate, acute.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands: Abundant from the North Cape southwards. Sea-level to 2000 ft. Tukauki. October–December.
A very variable plant. Var. b appears to be rare in the North Island.
2. L. grandiflora, Sweet Hort. Brit. ed. ii. 498.—Habit of L. ixioides, but taller and stouter, 2–3 ft. high, with leaves ⅓–½ in. broad. Flowering-stem and bracts much as in L. ixioides. Flowers rather larger, the inner perianth-segments much larger and broader than the outer, often 3 or 4 times as large. Capsule much larger, ​½–¾ in. long, broadly oblong or obovoid, yellow when fully ripe.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 274. L. macrocarpa, Klatt in Linnæa, xxxi. (1861–62) 384. Renealmia grandiflora, R. Br. Prodr. Add. 592.
North and South Islands: From the North Cape to Otago, but not so common as L. ixioides. October–November.
But for the great difference in the size of the capsule this might very well have been regarded as a variety of L. ixioides.
3. L. pulchella, Spreng. Syst. i. 168.—Small, slender, 3–9 in. high. Rhizome often elongated, sometimes branched at the top. Leaves 2–6 in. long, 1/12–1/6 in. broad, grassy, hardly rigid, margins smooth or ciliolate. Scape usually longer than the leaves, bearing a single terminal subumbellate cluster of 3–8 small white flowers, or in large specimens 1 or 2 other clusters may be developed lower down the scape; pedicels very slender, pubescent, ¾–1 in. long; bracts numerous, whorled at the base of the clusters. Perianth ⅓–½ in. diam.; segments almost equal, oblong-obovate. Capsule ⅙–⅕ in. diam., globose, membranous.—Benth. Fl. Austral. vi. 413. L. micrantha, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 308; Raoul, Choix, 41; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 252; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 274.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island: Damp mossy places in hilly forests throughout, not uncommon. Sea-level to 4000 ft. November–January. Also in south-eastern Australia and Tasmania.