Iris rutherfordii is a species in the genus Iris, it is also in the subgenus of Xiphium. It is a bulbous perennial. In June 2004, a joint University of Reading-Natural History Museum funded group (including Dr Stephen Jury – Reading University's Herbarium Curator) was sent on an expedition to Morocco in 2004. They found a group of irises similar in form to Iris serotina, in north Morocco (north of the Kebdana Mountains), at a height of 90m above sea level. Dr Jury sent a sample of the new iris to Dr Pablo Vargas,(a former Reading University student), now working on related Spanish irises in Madrid.Later, in 2006, another team from Real Jardin Botanico de Madrid(Spanish for Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid) travelled to the same area and found the same species of iris. Then a detailed morph