Köhler’s iris plate shows Iris florentina, the white Florentine iris. It’s the first of 3 iris plates in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen, a German book of medicinal plants, which all share the number 92. It appears in volume 2, completed in 1890. Walther Müller drew it, and it was printed in color as a chromolithograph.
What the plate shows
The plate shows parts of the plant at natural size, with its white flowers, and a flower with its petals removed, cut lengthwise to show the petal-like stigmas. Enlarged details show the stamens, pollen, and the ovary, whole and cut across. Köhler’s description of the iris plates ends with the credit “Nach der Natur von W. Müller,” German for “from nature, by W. Müller.”
The Latin name
Köhler calls the plant Iris florentina L. The L. stands for Linnaeus, who gave it this name. Iris is the Greek word for rainbow, which Köhler explains by the many colors of irises. Florentina means “from Florence.” The plant wasn’t native to Italy, but it was grown around Florence and Lucca, though less than the 2 other irises on Köhler’s plates.
Orris root
Köhler’s text names the rootstock as the official medicine, Rhizoma Iridis, and lists it in 11 pharmacopoeias, including the German one. Dried, it’s called orris root. It slowly takes on a scent of violets as it dries, which gave it the German name Veilchenwurz, “violet root.” Orris root went into perfume and tooth powder, and smoothed pieces were given to babies to bite on while teething. All 3 of Köhler’s irises gave orris root, and the finer-smelling kind shipped from Livorno probably came from Iris pallida.
The Iris Flower in our collection
The Iris Flower in our botanical art collection is a replica of this plate, finished by hand in our workshop.
