[1] Iris orjenii is exclusively confined to Orjen, the highest mountain of the coastal Dinaric Alps, towering over the Bay of Kotor in southwestern Montenegro.

The new species is restricted to humid chromic luvic cambisols and rendzic leptosols at localities above tree line in the oro- to altimediterranean lifezone between 1550 and 1750 m in the eastern Orjen.

Profound mixtures of species from more than one climatic zone and in addition endemic and stenoendemic species and special vegetation types with marked transitional vegetation units restricted exclusively to ecotons of humid (Csa) subtropical and hyper humid oceanic- (Cfs) climates are especially notable.

Mediterranean cyclones and sirocco storms are accountable for the heavy precipitation (up to 5000 mm/m2 at Crkvice, 940 m AMSL) that feeds the luxuriant and hyper-humid type of eastern Mediterranean vegetation comparable to colchidia-hyrcanian formations of the Caucasus and Asia Minor in the exceptionally damp and mild climate of the Montenegrin coast.

Rain augments in the supra- to oromediterranean life zone (Crkvice at 940 m) to 4926 mm/m2 (Cfsb climate; fs= without summer dryness), while the higher summits of the alti- and kryomediterranean life zone receive more than 6000 mm/m2 per year and are constituents of mediterranean snowclimates (Dfsc) heavily influenced by bora and sirocco storm winds.

Apart from the subunit within Peucedano-Pinetum heldreichii M. Jank with notable altimediterranean Dinaric dry mountainous grassland and xerophytic tall herb taxa (Peucedanum longifolium, Senecio thapsoides ssp.

saxatilis Pallas)) on not too shallow rendzic leptosols at the bases of higher cliffs, there is in depressions with deep chromic luvic cambisols a mesophytic tall herb community with numerous humidity indicators within Seslerion robustae where Iris orjenii forms a community of its own with respect to its spectrum of diagnostic species as well as its physiognomic structure.

), as observed at the latter community and nearby scattered individuals of Betula pendula and Acer heldreichii, underline that specially this part of Mt.

Orjen belongs to the transitional oromediterranean type where the orophytic vegetation contains mixtures of submediterranean and temperate chorological elements.

Cross-breeding of closely related species belonging to different chorions as it was probably the fact with the putative parent species of I. orjenii are thus readily explained by the driving climatological forces of scirocco and bora which induce vegetation mosaics of temperate and mediterranean elements at different altitudes.

Shape and undulation of falls and standards are much more similar to I. reichenbachii, whereas no white flowered individuals from wild population of this species have been reported.

bosniaca and I. orjenii have strong affinities in their phytosociological character as they are constituents of Festuco-Seslerietea Barbéro & Bonin 1969 with I. reichenbachii var.

associations on shallow rendzic leptosols of Dinaric high altitudinal limestone pastures and Pinion heldreichii alliances.