Iris grant-duffii, Iris melanosticta,
Grant Duff's Iris, Jaffa Iris,
Hebrew: אירוס הביצות, Arabic: سوسن المستنقعات

Scientific name:		Iris grant-duffii Baker
Synonym name:		Iris melanosticta Bornm.
Common name:		Grant-Duff's Iris, Jaffa Iris
Hebrew name:		אירוס הביצות, Irus ha-bitzot
Arabic name:		سوسن المستنقعات
Family:		Iridaceae, Iris Family, אירוסיים

Life form:		Geophyte, rootstock, large clumbs
Stems:		15-40 cm tall, round; spathes linear, greenish, papery at margin, tapering to apex
Leaves:		Up to 70 cm long, stiff, flat, linear, strongly veined
Flowers:		Yellow, Greenish-yellow, tube 7mm long; falls 6-7cm long, with purple to lilac veins; standards 5cm long, erect, and narrower than the falls.
Fruits / pods:		cylindrica ellipsoid; seeds rounded, tuberculate, red-brown
Flowering Period:		January, February
Habitat:		Riparian
Distribution:		Acco Plain, Sharon Plain, Lower Galilee, Esdraelon Plain, Samaria, Kinnroth Valley, Golan
Chorotype:		Mediterranean
Summer shedding:		Ephemeral

Derivation of the botanical name: Iris, ιριϛ, ιδοϛ, rainbow; female messenger, announcer of the gods, the Greek goddess of the rainbow. grant-duffii, named for Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff (1829 - 1906), known as M. E. Grant Duff before 1887 and as Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff thereafter. Baker gives the following in Curtis's Botanical Magazine. 124: tab. 7604; 1898: "This very distinct new Iris was first collected, so far as our records show, in 1864, by Mr. B. T. Lowne on the banks of the river Kishon. Several years later it was found by Sir M. E. Grant Duff in the plain of Esdraelon, recognized as a distinct species, and introduced into cultivation". melanosticta, μελαϛ melas, black; stictos, spotted, dotted; black-spotted. The Hebrew name: אירוס, iris, transliteration from the scientific name. "Irus ha-bitzot", the swamp iris, the Hebrew name derives from its habitat of marshy areas. The standard author abbreviation Baker is used to indicate John Gilbert Baker (1834 – 1920) , an English botanist. The standard author abbreviation Bornm. is used to indicate Joseph Friedrich Nicolaus Bornmüller (1862 – 1948), a German botanist. The genus Iris has several subgenera, and the Limniris is one of them; beardless irises, growing from rhizomes.