Flora of New Zealand Series

Stinking Iris

Small tufts to a large clumps with rather drab flowers. Rhizome to 1.5 cm diam., red-brown. Leaves leathery, = or slightly > stem, 1.5-2.5 cm wide, with unpleasant smell if bruised. Stems 60-80 cm high. Scapes 2-4-flowered, unbranched; spathe-valves green with membranous margins. Flowers to 10 cm diam., usually dull yellow with greenish-brown markings, more rarely dull brownish-purple; pedicel c. 4. times > ovary; tube c. ½ length of ovary; outer segments c. 5 × 1.5 cm, lanceolate, gradually narrowed to base; inner segments < outer but > style-branches, claw very narrow, limb spathulate. Style-branches brownish-yellow, c. 1 cm wide, spathulate, lobes of crest rounded. Capsule c. 6 cm long, more narrowed at base than at apex, persistent when dry, with each locule opening and twisting, exposing 2 rows of large, scarlet, rounded seeds, 5 × 5 mm, remaining firmly attached.

N. Throughout. S. Almost throughout; not known from Westland, Fiordland and Southland. In pasture and in shaded waste places and bush remnants.

(Europe and N.Africa)

First record: Healy 1958: 538.

First collections: "Near Nelson, cultivated in Miss Harris' garden who said it was naturalised", T. Kirk, no date [pre-1898] (WELT); the earliest dated specimens are "Bolton St. Cemetery, Wellington, growing wild on bank", R. Mason 14.12.1945 (CHR 54355-6).

FL. 11-12.

The shade-preferring I. foetidissima is recognised by the drab flowers and conspicuous globose scarlet seeds exposed in the persistent, dehisced capsule-valves; the leathery leaves give an unpleasant odour when broken.

Hedera helix

Widely occurring and increasing, unpalatable, toxic to livestock and difficult to eradicate; found on shaded banks, and in hedgerows, about dump areas, about and in farm plantations and in grassland, varying in extent scattered colonies to large dense troublesome communities spreading from infestations in gullies into grassland in regions of high rainfall. It is a problem in forest remnants and reserves, alone or associated with, Selaginella kraussiana or Tradescantia fluminensis. Seeds are dispersed by birds, and fans with portions of rhizome attached may be carried by streams.

Formerly widely cultivated and still extant in older gardens, it is rarely planted now; it was used as a wild garden subject, as an effective ground cover, and because the persistent dehisced capsules provided a splash of colour in the winter garden, and could be used as an interior dry decoration.