1 Spec. Plant. Willd. i. 224. Cl. 3. Ord. 1. Triandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Irideae. G. 97. Corolla six-parted; the alternate segments reflected.

Stigmas petal-like. * Bearded with ensiform leaves. Species 7. I. Florentina.2 Florentine Iris. Med. Pot. 3d edit.

t. 262. Sibthorp, Flora, Graca, 28. t. 39. Officinal. Iridis Florentinae Radix, Edin. The root of Florentine Iris.

Syn. Iris de Florence (F.), Violenwurzel (G.), Florentynse Isis (Dutch), Violrot (Swed.), Violron (Dan.), Iyrsa (Arab.), Irva (H.), Ireos (I.), Lirio de Florencia (S.), Lirio de Florenca (Port.).

This species of Iris, which is found in a wild state in Car-niola, the island of Rhodes, Laconia, and other places of the south of Europe, is cultivated in our gardens1; flowering in May and June. The root is tuberous, horizontal, somewhat jointed, and sends off many fibres from the under part. The leaves spring directly from the root, spreading in opposite directions, are sheathing, sword-shaped, vertical, nerved, curved inwards at the apex, and of a sea-green colour, yellowish at the base. From amidst them the stem rises, upwards of a foot in height, erect, simple, naked, round, and commonly bearing two flowers. The flowers are large, of a pale whitish blue colour, erect, terminal, and inodorous, bursting from a ventricose, nerved, floral leaf. The petals are alternate, three larger and three smaller: the larger have thickish claws," about an inch long, bordered with a thin edge, green on the outside, and bearded within with yellow-tipped, white hairs: the border is an inch in width, and longer; reflected, whitish, and striated near the flexure; the smaller are whitish blue, stand erect, are bent inwards, with a reflected margin; and have thick, attenuated, greenish claws.

The anthers are white, covered by the stigmas, which have the colour of the corolla, and are cleft at the apex into two acute, serrated, upright segments. The capsules are three-celled, containing many seeds horizontally placed.

1 "Iris a coelestis arcus similitudine nomen obtinuit."-Dioscorides.

Theophrasti.

The roots of the Florentine iris are brought in a dry state from Leghorn, packed in large casks. They are in irregular knobbed pieces, with the cuticle pared off; of a dirty yellowish white colour, and full of small holes, which mark the places whence the radical fibres issued. The best pieces break with a rough but not fibrous fracture.

Qualities.-These roots, when recent, have a bitterish, nauseous taste, and are very acrid; but this acrimony is lost by drying. In their dry state they are brittle, easily pulverized, have a sweetish bitter taste, with a slight degree of pungency, and the agreeable odour of the violet, for which they are chiefly valued. When chymically examined, they appear to consist principally of fecula, with a portion of mucilage and saccharine matter; a solid fixed, and a volatile oil; and to contain malic acid, as their infusion strikes a brown colour with sulphate of iron.

Medical properties and uses.-The dry root is nearly inert. It does not merit a place in the list of materia medica.