Netted iris (Iris reticulata)

Iris reticulata is a small bulbous iris that grows wild from the Caucasus to Turkmenistan^[1]. In Kurdistan it has been collected in the mountains of North Kurdistan (Bakur)^[2], South Kurdistan (Başûr)^[3] and East Kurdistan (Rojhilat)^[4]. It flowers early in the year, often right after the snow melts^[5]. One of its subspecies, subsp. kurdica, is named after Kurdistan^[6] and is known only from a small area south of Elbak (Başkale, Turkey)^[7].

The name

Friedrich August Marschall von Bieberstein described the species in 1808, in his Flora Taurico-Caucasica^[8]. The type was collected by Adam in “Iberia”, which Adil Güner places at Tbilisi in Georgia^[9]. Reticulata means “netted”: the bulb is wrapped in a coarse net of fibres^[10]. In English it is called netted iris or winter iris^[11]. Botanists have also placed it in other genera, as Neubeckia reticulata (1863) and Xiphion reticulatum (1866)^[12] and as Iridodictyum reticulatum^[1].

Description

A plant 7–17 cm tall in flower. Each bulb has one to three narrow leaves, four-angled in section, which are no longer than the flower at first and later grow to 30 cm. The single flower varies from pale blue to violet or purple, with a perianth tube 4–7 cm long^[10]. In the typical subspecies the flower is dark purple or claret all over, apart from a few markings and a yellow crest^[13]. The capsule ripens more or less at ground level^[10].

Where it grows

Iris reticulata grows at 600–2700 m in mountain grassland, on limestone rocks and stony slopes, and in oak forest and scrub^[10].

In North Kurdistan, Güner lists collections from Amed (Diyarbakır), Çewlîg (Bingöl), Bedlîs (Bitlis), Mûş (Muş) and Colemêrg (Hakkâri). For the typical subspecies he gives open pine and oak woods, meadows, fields, steppe and rocky slopes, at 680–2600 m^[2].

In South Kurdistan, herbarium specimens at Kew come from the Sefîn mountain near Şeqlawe (Shaqlawa), collected in 1958^[3], from Silêmanî (Sulaymaniyah), in 1920^[14], and from oak forest on Qeredax (Qaradagh), in 1964^[15]. A 2023 study by botanists of the University of Silêmanî maps it in the Kurdistan Region^[16].

In East Kurdistan, it was collected in 1964 on limestone 50 miles east of Sine (Sanandaj)^[4], and in 1890 at Kangavar^[17].

The bulb specialist Jānis Rukšāns thinks that, in the wide sense, the name still hides several unrecognised species, and that many of their localities are little explored^[5].

Flowering

February to May^[10]. Like the other netted irises, it blooms right after the snow melts, when few people are in the mountains to see it^[5].

Kurdish names

The dictionary of Kurdish plant names by Ehmedê Dirihî (Ahmet Kasımoğlu, 2013) gives two names for Iris reticulata together with their source: gulale newroze, from Emîr Emînî^[18], and gulenewroze, from the source it calls “Kurdistan Medical Plant”^[19]. Its Latin index also lists bilbizêk, gulbizaya mazêran, newroz and sosina bêj for the species, without a source; it gives bilbizêk and newroz for other irises as well^[20].

Subspecies

Kew's World Checklist accepts four subspecies: subsp. reticulata, subsp. isikgunerae, subsp. selahattinii and subsp. kurdica^[1].

Iris reticulata subsp. kurdica

Rukšāns described it in 2007 as Iris reticulata var. kurdica, in his book Buried Treasures^[21]. The type was collected on 27 May 2004 by Rukšāns, Arnis Seisums and Henrik Zetterlund on steep serpentine slopes 27 km south of Elbak, on the road to Colemêrg, at about 1800 m. The holotype is kept at the herbarium in Gothenburg^[6]. Seisums had taken a few bulbs that were not in flower; when they first bloomed in Rukšāns's garden, the plants were very small and of a different colour^[7]. Rukšāns explained the name in his own words: it is “named after Turkish Kurdistan where it is growing, to recall the former independent Kurdish state”^[6].

Its rank has changed three times. In 2015 Crespo and colleagues moved it to another genus as Iridodictyum kurdicum, and in 2019 Rukšāns made it a species, Iris kurdica^[6]; in 2021 Güner made it a subspecies of I. reticulata^[22]. Kew follows Güner^[1].

It is smaller than typical I. reticulata: 10–12 cm tall, with two leaves. The falls are very dark, almost blackish purple, with a narrow deep-yellow ridge^[6]. The standards are purplish pink, and its black anthers and pollen set it apart from the other netted irises growing nearby^[7].

In Kurdistan, it is known only from three gatherings within about 30 km of each other, along the road from Elbak to Gever (Yüksekova)^[7]. Güner gives steep serpentine slopes at 1880–2600 m, flowering in April^[22]. Mehmet Fırat collected it again at the type locality on 7 April 2011, at 2600 m^[23].