UC-NRLF

4 312 flfll

T6x*x*»Dvcwtdfcjs

LANDSCAPE
RCHlTEGTUgf

The Gift of Beatrix Farrand

to the General Library
University of California, Berkeley

I

m

Ex

Libris

BEATRIX
JONES

LANDSCAPE

ARCHITECTURE

m

REEF POINT GARDENS
LIBRARY

EDITED BY

R. HOOPER PEARSON
MANAGING EDITOR
OF THE GARDENERS
CHRONICLE

A LIST OF VOLUMES
IN THE SERIES IS
GIVEN ON THE NEXT
PAGE.

Tresent-Day (gardening

List of Vc1 :nes in the Series.

1. SWEET PEAS. By HORACB J. WRIGHT, late Secre-

tary and Chairman of the National Sweet Pea Society.
With Chapter on "Sweet Peas for Exhibition" by THOS.
STEVENSON.

2. PANSIES, VIOLAS, AND VIOLETS. By WILLIAM

CUTHBERTSON, J.P., and R. HOOPER PEARSON.

3. ROOT AND STEM VEGETABLES. By ALEXANDER

DEAN, V.M.H., Chairman of the National Vegetable Society.

4. DAFFODILS. By the Rev. J. JACOB, Secretary of

the Midland Daffodil Society, with Preface by the Rev. W.
WILKS, M.A., Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society.

5. ORCHIDS. By JAMES O'BRIEN, V.M.H., Secretary

of the Orchid Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society.

6. CARNATIONS AND PINKS. By T. H. COOK, Head

Gardener to Queen Alexandra at Sandringham ; JAMES
DOUGLAS, V.M.H. ; and J. F. M'LEOD, Head Gardener to
Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.

7. RHODODENDRONS AND AZALEAS. (The first

popular volume published on this subject,) By WILLIAM
WATSON, A.L.S., Curator of the Poyal Botanic Gardens, Kew,
with Preface by Sir FRED. W. MOORE, M.A., A.L.S., V.M.H.

8. LILIES. By A. GROVE, F.L.S., with Preface by

H. J. ELWES, F.R.S.

9. APPLES AND PEARS. By GEORGE BUNYARD,

V.M.H., Chairman of Fruit and Vegetable Committee of Royal
Horticultural Society.

10. ROSES. By H. R. DARLINGTON, Member of Council

of National Rose Society. (Double volume.)

11. IRISES. By W. RICKATSON DYKES, M.A.,L.-es-L.

With Preface by PROFESSOR I. BAYLEY BALFOUR, D.Sc.,
F.R.S., &*c,

These will be followed by volumes on Annuals, Rock
Garden and Alpine Plants, Chrysanthemums, Dahlias,
Paeonies, Primulas, Trees and Shrubs, Cucumbers,
Melons, Bedding Plants, Hardy Herbaceous Plants,
Ferns, Tomatoes, Bulbous Plants, Peaches and Nec-
tarines, Vines, Stove and Greenhouse Plants, &C.

PLATE I (Frontispiece)
I. BUCHARICA— A TYPICAL JUNO IRIS

PREFACE BY PROFESSOR BAYLEY BALFOUR

Q

Add" I

LANDSCAPE

AP^H'T^

Farrarid

LANDSCAPE
ARCH, j
LIBRARY

PREFACE

THE gardening world has recognised for some time past
that in the realm of Iris the mantle of the late Sir Michael
Foster descended upon the writer of this book — and it will
confirm the succession. It is a good book — written with
all the verve and freedom of accurate knowledge derived
from observation of the plants as they grow as well as from
study of their dried bones in collectors' herbaria — an essen-
tial combination for the elaboration of any sketch that is to
suggest claim to authority in such plants, and this book does
suggest and makes good its claim in this respect.

Not the most ardent enthusiast can pretend that Iris-
culture attracts in our days with the intensity which the
intrinsic merit of the species should command, and in some
degree this lukewarmness may be ascribed to difficulties over
which no help has been obtainable from any concise but
not technical exposition of their forms and needs. The
facile rhizome with potential immortality of the Bearded
Iris has given it a dominance in cultivation through which
it has become an obsession as the type of Iris, and it must
always have a prominent place in estimation, but the growth-
forms of members of other groups — Juno, for example —
modify in no small measure the stereotyped concept of what
is an Iris, and the daintiness, softer blendings, less demon-
strativeness of many of them ask for them a share of atten-

vU

I. 069

viii PREFACE

tion which they have not received. True, the Xiphiums of
the bulbous section have established for themselves rightly a
popular position, but hardly so the Reticulatas nor yet the
Junos ; and what is there more beautiful than a " bush " two
feet high — such it is even in the inclement climate of South-
east Scotland — of that gem of the Junos, 7. bucharica f Can
we say of the Evansias that those unfailingly responsive and
dainty forms, /. gracilipes and /. cristata, are known as they
deserve ? or that free-growing Apogons like the Californian
/. Douglasiana and /. Purdyi are sufficiently known ? No
more need be said. By the publication of this book the
conditions will be changed. Mr. Dykes supplies in it just
the assistance that has been hitherto wanting, opening wide
the avenue of Iris-culture, and the outcome of his effort will
be a wider interest in the cultivation of Irises and a more
general introduction of forms as yet unusual in gardens.

Beginning with a short but adequate account of the
structure of the Iris plant and of the groups into which the
genus may be conveniently divided, Mr. Dykes continues
with an easy and reliable description of the leading character-
istics and requirements of the several cultivated species in
their respective groups. In this part of the book the
gardener will gather with peculiar joy the suggestion of those
easily grasped marks — tips from the man who knows — which
will enable him to recognise his species with certainty and
to tell one species from another. He will find differential
garden puzzles, such as that of /. pumila and /. chamceiris,
of /. Icevigata and /. Kcempferi, of /. ruthenica and 7.
humilis, and many others, dealt with succinctly and a key
supplied, and problems of hybridisation and other problems
touched upon suggestively with a stimulus to investigation.

PREFACE ix

The chapters on the best species for planting in different
situations form a garden-guide of judicious advice to the
cultivator, and along with the concluding calendar provide
a directory by means of which any gardener may achieve
success in Iris-culture and enjoy the delight of uninterrupted
succession of bloom from January to December.

The whole story is necessarily brief within the compass
of so small a volume — nevertheless compendious. It is,
however, no secret that in this little guide for everybody
we have only a whet to the banquet which Mr. Dykes has
prepared for us in the larger book, with full descriptions and
many illustrations of the species of Iris, that is to appear
shortly through the enterprise of the Syndics of the
Cambridge University Press. In relation to that larger work
this sketch will be a primer. In their association Horti-
culture will have a story of Iris in Present-day Gardening
for which Mr. Dykes will merit gratitude.

ISAAC BAYLEY BALFOUR.

ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS,
EDINBURGH.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE vii

INTRODUCTION i

CHAP.

I. THE DIVISIONS OF THE IRIS GENUS 5

II. THE STRUCTURE OF THE IRIS FLOWER ... 7

III. BULBOUS IRISES 9

IV. BULBOUS IRISES (continued) 15

V. BULBOUS IRISES (continued) 17

VI. THE ONCOCYCLUS IRISES 23

VII. THE EVANSIA SECTION 30

VIII. "GERMAN" IRISES 34

IX. OTHER BEARDED IRISES .... -45

X. THE APOGON IRISES 48

XI. IRISES FOR THE ROCK GARDEN . . . .68
XII. IRISES FOR THE ROCK GARDEN (continued) . . 72

XIII. IRISES FOR THE HERBACEOUS BORDER . . .81

XIV. THE CULTIVATION AND PROPAGATION OF IRISES . 89
XV. IRISES THAT SELDOM FLOWER 92

XVI. SOME IRIS PROBLEMS . -95

XVII. THE ILLUSTRATIONS . . 101

XVIII. AN IRIS CALENDAR . . .103

INDEX OF SPECIES AND VARIETIES OF IRIS . . 107
GENERAL INDEX no

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE

I. I. BUCHARICA — A TYPICAL JUNO IRIS . . Frontispiece

PAGE

II. I. LONGIPETALA — A FlNE APOGON IRIS . . -14

III. I. SUSIANA — A TYPICAL ONCOCYCLUS IRIS . . 26

IV. I. JACQUINIANA — A GOOD "GERMAN" IRIS . . 42

V. ONE OF THE NEW GIANT XIPHIUMS OR "DUTCH"

IRISES 58

VI. I. XIPHIOIDES OR ANGLICA A TYPICAL GARDEN

FORM 74

VII. I. OCHROLEUCA .... ... 88

VIII. A DOUBLE JAPANESE FORM OF I. K^EMPFERI . . 98

xiii

IRISES

INTRODUCTION

It is not the object of this book to provide a scientific
account of the Iris genus, nor is it proposed to enter into
questions of classification and affinity, however interesting
these may be. Indeed, it would hardly be possible within
the limits of this series to give detailed descriptions of
all the individual species, or to unravel the entanglements
that have arisen in their nomenclature.

To accomplish the latter, it is in many cases necessary
to start with the account given in Linnaeus' Species Plan-
tarum, of which the first edition was published in 1753,
and to try to discover to what Linnaeus was really alluding
when he wrote his description. It is a fascinating inquiry,
for, with the help of a good botanical library, such as that
of the Kew Herbarium, it is possible to trace back Linnaeus'
species through the earlier writers until we come to the first
description of each species, from which the plant can usually
be recognised. For instance, in early days the Spanish and
the English Irises were hardly separated, and in trying to
discover what Linnaeus meant by /. xiphium we get back
at length to Carolus Clusius, the latinised version of the
name of one Charles de 1'Escluse, a botanist who travelled

A

2 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

in the Spanish peninsula and in Germany and Austria about
the middle of the sixteenth century. He published
accounts of the rarer plants that he found in these two
regions, and it is in his Spanish volume that we find
accounts of both the Spanish and the English Irises as we
now know them. One feature alone is sufficient to dis-
tinguish the two, and that both were known to Clusius is
proved by the fact that he notes that the one has larger seed-
vessels than the other — so large, in fact, that the seeds rattle
in them when ripe. This exactly describes the capsule of
the English Iris. That of the Spanish varieties is much
narrower, so that the seeds have not room to rattle much
in it.

From this we may infer that Linnaeus included under
the name of /. xiphium both the plants that are now
known as the English and Spanish Irises.

But it is obvious that it would be impossible to give
here the result of similar inquiries and searches with regard
to all the other hundred and fifty odd species, that have
been found growing wild from California and Alaska in the
west to China and Japan in the east, and from Hong- Kong
in the south to Labrador in the north.

It will be better to devote the space at our disposal to
the consideration of the Iris as a decorative and pleasure-
giving garden plant, which might be far more often
employed than at present seems to be the case for the
adornment of rock gardens, bog gardens, and herbaceous
borders. Few gardeners realise the possibilities of species
and varieties of Iris for one or other of these purposes.
Still less is it generally known and appreciated that, possibly
with the help of a cold frame or a few small portable lights,

TIME OF FLOWERING 3

it is not at all difficult to have some Irises in flower in every
week in the year. It is true that two of the species that can
be relied upon to flower in November and December must
usually be renewed every year, for in our climate it is
almost impossible so to ripen the growth of /. alata and /.
Vartanii as to ensure their flowering again in the following
season. However, bulbs of /. alata can now be obtained
very cheaply, and a shilling or two invested in them will be
well repaid.

In September and October the supply of Irises is some-
what uncertain, and depends a good deal on the season, and
even, it appears, on the idiosyncrasies of individual plants ;
that is to say, that of certain kinds of Bearded Irisis, one
seedling may prove to have the habit of flowering a second
time in the autumn in favourable circumstances, while all
the others that have been raised from seeds of the same pod
content themselves with a single flowering season in the
early part of the year.

Instances of bulbous Irises flowering twice are very
uncommon, but some bulbs of the rare /. Rosen-
bachiana once came into flower in December and
January after they had already bloomed in the previous
March. Most of them unfortunately paid the penalty of
the rashness in flowering again thus prematurely by
growing very feebly in the following spring and failing
to complete and ripen their growth in a satisfactory
manner. On the contrary, an autumnal display of
flowers does not seem to be in any way harmful to
vigorous, rhizomatous species. A variety of /. variegata,
known as Gracchus, which is a most profuse flowerer
in May and early June, will not infrequently flower again

4 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

in September and October, and even then be ready to
bloom again in the following spring.

The existing literature on the Iris is mostly to be found
scattered in various botanical and horticultural publica-
tions, many of which are only accessible in the libraries
of the Herbarium Department at Kew and at the Natural
History Museum at South Kensington, or in a few other
large libraries. A most useful compendium of many of
these scattered references will be found in Mr. J. G.
Baker's Handbook of the Iridece, published in 1892.
Since that date no attempt has been made to bring together
in a systematic manner either the references to the newer
species or the results of further research concerning those
already known. And yet much remains to be done, both
in the direction of clearing up many difficulties of
nomenclature and synonymy, and also in reviewing the
species already described in the light of the recent advances
in the study of heredity that we owe to Mendel and
Bateson.

In 1904 Mr. R. Irwin Lynch, of the Cambridge Botanic
Garden, published in The Book of the Iris a more
popular and less severely technical version of Mr. Baker's
treatment of the genus. Little attempt was made to check
the accuracy of the references and descriptions given in the
Handbook, but Mr. Lynch's work made a great appeal
to those gardeners who were interested in Irises and yet
were not sufficiently conversant with botanical terms to
be able to derive from the dry details of the earlier work
much idea of the appearance of the plants therein described.
To the professional botanist, the colour of the actual

DIVISIONS OF IRIS GENUS 5

flowers is of very little importance, and indeed it is often
unknown to him, for in most cases he has never seen the
living plant, but only dried herbarium specimens. To the
gardener, however, it is somewhat disconcerting to find
that in the scientific Handbook the flowers of five out of the
first six species are dismissed with the laconic description
"limb lilac," nor is he much helped by the occasional
addition of the qualifying adjectives, "bright," "dark,"
and "plain."

Mons. H. Correvon's little work, entitled Les Iris dans
les JardinSj is obviously founded on Mr. Lynch's book,
but contains certain additions and some useful cultural
hints.

CHAPTER I

THE DIVISIONS OF THE IRIS GENUS

VARIOUS attempts have been made to arrive at the natural
divisions among Irises, but no entirely satisfactory system
has yet been thought out. It may, however, be as well to
give some rough outline of the main classes into which
Irises seem to fall, and to explain the significance of the
names that have been applied to the various groups.

The first and main division is into bulbous and non-
bulbous species. Each of these two main divisions falls
in its turn into several subdivisions, which themselves may
be further subdivided into groups.

To take first the bulbous Irises, the bulb may in its resting

6 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

state, either be a simple bulb something like that of a
small Narcissus but without the neck of the latter, or it may
possess several thick, tapering, fleshy roots, attached to the
base of the bulb, which send out branching rootlets when
growth begins again in autumn.

To the former class belong the Xiphium, or Spanish
Iris group and the reticulata section. To the latter class
belong the Juno Irises, most of which are of comparatively
recent introduction from Central Asia, although one
member at least of the subdivision, /. persica, has been in
cultivation in England at any rate since the middle of the
sixteenth century.

So far the task of division has been easy, but when we
come to the other main division, namely, the species with
rhizomatous rootstocks, our difficulties immediately become
greater. The various divisions with which we have here to
deal are less clearly and easily defined. They consist, in
the first place, of the Pogoniris group or Bearded Irises, the
name being derived from the Greek Troyyav, a beard, and
the Apogon species, which, as the name implies, should be
beardless. Unfortunately, some of the species, which in
other respects seem to belong to the latter group, have on
the blade of the fall a pubescence, which under the
microscope becomes distinctly a beard. However, both
these classes are easily distinguished from the Evansias, a
small group in which the beard is replaced by a crest. The
name Pseudevansia has been invented for a group of Irises
in which the beard was supposed to spring from a kind of
low ridge, running down the centre of the fall, though it is
doubtful whether there are really any Irises belonging to
such a class.

STRUCTURE OF IRIS FLOWER 7

Another division bears the mysterious name of Oncocy-
clus, whose author does indeed give the two Greek words
of which the name is composed, but omits to give the inter-
pretation thereof. As one of these means a circle and the
other anything from a mass or the space that contains it to
dignity, majesty, or even a topknot, we are left in the dark
as to the meaning that he attached to the word. It may
have some reference to the curious shape of the seeds, which
is characteristic of this and another closely allied group,
named Regelia after Dr. Regel, of St. Petersburg, by whose
exertions so many Central Asian species were introduced
into cultivation.

Outside these main subdivisions, there are various mis-
cellaneous species that do not seem to fit into any of them.
Two species, for instance /. nepalensis and I. Collettii,
have neither a bulb nor a rhizome for their rootstock,
but a mere growing point to which a bundle of fleshy
roots is attached, closely resembling those of the Hemero-
callis.

CHAPTER II
THE STRUCTURE OF THE IRIS FLOWER

To define an Iris is not altogether as easy as it might
seem at first sight. To say that it is a monocotyledonous
plant, whose perianth is divided into two regular whorls,
each of three segments, is prosaic, mystifying to the non-
botanical mind, and unsatisfying even to the botanist.
For this definition includes, besides Irises proper, other

8 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

bulbous plants such as Moraeas, which used, indeed,
formerly to be classed with Irises. But what is the differ-
ence between an Iris and a Moraea ? The standard book
on the Irideae affords us no further light on this question
than that Irises grow north of the Equator and Moraeas
south of it ! This may be true, but it is hardly scientific,
although it would certainly add to the interest with which
the botanical world would await the first flowering of any
bulbous plants that might be brought from the temperate
regions on the Kenia and Kilimanjaro Ranges, which lie
almost directly under the Equator in Central Africa. As
a matter of fact Irises are only separated from Moraeas
by the existence of a tube, however short, between the
ovary and the base of the segments of the perianth. In
a Moraea, the divisions of the flower rise directly from
the top of the ovary without the intervention of any tube.
The six segments of the flowers of an Iris are popularly
known as the "standards" and the "falls." The terms
are convenient, but nevertheless inappropriate when applied
to such groups as that of the Juno Irises, where the standards
are either horizontal or drooping, while the falls stand up
at an angle of at least 45°. In addition to these six
segments, there are the three style branches, which arch
over the anthers and bear on their under side near the
extremity the stigmatic surface, through which the flower
is fertilised. The style branches form the roof and the
haft of the falls the floor of a kind of tunnel. The
stigma projects downwards at the mouth of this tunnel,
along the roof of which lie the anthers. These bear the
pollen, and at their base exudes the nectar which entices
the insects.

THE RETICULATA GROUP 9

In theory and in the text-books, the bee or other insect
pushes his way obligingly down the tunnel, collects pollen
on his back from the anthers, and deposits some of it on the
stigma in the next tunnel that he enters. In practice, how-
ever, the bee is apt to take short cuts, and may be observed
time after time forcing himself in between style and fall
near the base of the tunnel and so avoiding both anther and
stigma. Occasionally a bee is unenterprising and does the
expected, and then pollination is effected, if he happens to
have Iris pollen on his back. This, again, is a point in
which the text-books do not agree with fact, for a little
observation in the garden on a sunny day will soon prove
that a bee does not on each expedition from the hive con-
fine himself to the flowers of one particular species or genus.

Insects cannot therefore be relied upon to fertilise Irises,
and the result is that, in cultivation in England at any rate,
only certain species set seed at all readily, and these are
precisely those in which a certain formation of the stigma
makes self-pollination not only possible, but probable and
even almost necessary.

CHAPTER III
BULBOUS IRISES

I. THE RETICULATA GROUP

THIS group of winter or early spring flowering Irises
comprises those species in which the bulbs are covered

io PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

with an outer coat consisting of a network of fibres.
The name is derived from the Latin reticulum, a little
net

All the members of this group are natives either of Asia
Minor or of the regions immediately to the east, north, and
south of that country, and all agree in possessing narrow
leaves, which are irregularly four-sided, and which end
in a horny top. The southernmost representative is
apparently /. Vartanii, which comes from Nazareth, and
flowers in October or November. It is consequently diffi-
cult to keep, and as the colour is a poor, slaty blue, it would
hardly be worth cultivating, except for its delightful scent
of almonds, and for the fact that it flowers when few other
Irises can be relied upon to send up their blooms. Next
year we may hope to see a pure white form of this Iris, and
let us hope that it will prove to have a stronger constitution
than the type. It is said to have appeared among seedlings
in a garden.

Next in order of time comes an Iris, which was named
Histrio from the fact that its flowers are so brightly and
conspicuously blotched and splashed with deep blue on a
pale blue ground that the colours appear almost to have
been laid on with a brush. It is said to be distinguished
from histrioides by the fact that its leaves are of some
length before the flowers appear, while histrioides throws
up its bloom simultaneously with the leaves. This dis-
tinction is of doubtful value, and the probable explanation
is that both the one and the other are merely local forms
of the same thing.

A very early flowering dwarf Iris of this group is that
named by Foster /. reticulata sophenensis. The colour is

RETICULATA n

a peculiar blue-purple, without the blotches so characteristic
of the two species just mentioned.

These three are usually closely followed by the red-
purple /. Krelagei, which in its turn is succeeded by the
well-known deep violet /. reticulata — the so-called type.
/. Krelagei may be a very poor thing, scarcely worth growing,
but there are some forms which have magnificent, broad-
petalled flowers of a shade approaching crimson. Both
this and the type increase fast when the conditions suit
them, and should therefore be frequently lifted and replanted.
If this is not done, the flowers become so crowded that the
outline of each is lost and half the beauty gone. On the
other hand, the sight of a bed of several hundreds of these
exquisite flowers of brilliant violet and gold gleaming amidst
the grey-green mist of glaucous foliage does indeed rejoice
the heart on some sunny morning at the end of February
or early in March.

The method of frequent lifting has another advantage
in that it enables steps to be taken to counteract the
ravages of a deadly fungous disease which first shows
itself in the shape of inklike stains on the outer coat of
the bulbs. Soaking for about two hours in a solution
of formalin of the strength of one in three hundred parts
seems to check the disease.

As to cultivation, all that can be said is that shelter
from wind is advisable for such early flowering bulbs,
and that it is impossible to say that any particular soil
is more suitable than another. The bulbs appear to be
most capricious, and except that humus in some form
may with advantage be added to a very poor soil, no
directions can be given. It may be useful to remember

12 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

that with care the bulbs can be moved successfully when
in flower. This enables seedlings and chance mixtures
to be sorted out, a process which is extremely difficult
later on, when the foliage has died down and the position
of any particular bulb in a group can no longer be
ascertained.

The above-mentioned members of this group all have
four-sided leaves, but there is one species, 7. Bakenana,
named after Mr. J. G. Baker, the late keeper of the Kew
Herbarium, in which the leaves have eight sides, or rather
are round with eight raised ribs. The flowers are small,
but have a delightful velvety texture. The colour is
produced by deep violet dots and broken veins on a white
ground, which becomes entirely obliterated in the deep
self-coloured tip of the blade. This beautiful little species
blooms in January or early in February, and is indeed
worthy of some sheltered nook in the rock garden or
even the protection of a cold frame.

7. Danfordice, the one yellow-flowered species of the
group, is a little dwarf Iris, of brilliant colour, remarkable
for the almost total disappearance of the standards.

Indications are not wanting that other Irises of this
class may yet be found when Asia Minor becomes more
thoroughly explored. Farther East — in Turkestan, to be
more exact — two curious Irises have been discovered
which may or may not belong to this group, 7. Kolpakow-
skiana and 7. Winkleri. It is greatly to be hoped that
they will soon be brought once more into cultivation, and
their position in the genus settled.

7. Sisyrinchium can hardly be said to belong to this

PLATE II
I. LONGIPETALA— A FINE APOGON IRIS

THE XIPHION GROUP 15

group, but, as its bulbs have netted coats, it may perhaps
be just mentioned here. It is distinct from all other
Irises in its method of increase and in the extreme frailty
of its flowers, which last only from twelve to four on a
sunny day. Its habitat extends from Portugal to Kashmir,
and its colour varies through all shades of lavender, lilac,
and purple. It has been said to have the additional merit
that, if you do not like the flower or the habit of the plant,
you can eat the bulb.

CHAPTER IV

BULBOUS IRISES (continued)

II. THE XIPHION GROUP

THIS group contains the so-called Spanish and English
Irises, both of which are well known, and a certain number
of wild species akin to them that might well be more often
seen in gardens.

/. xiphium comes from Spain and Portugal, and affords
brightly-coloured masses of flower about the middle of
June. It delights in a warm, rich soil, and the bulbs should
be lifted occasionally when the foliage withers, and separ-
ated before overcrowding occurs to diminish the size of
the flowers. In recent years a number of very fine large-
flowered hybrids have been introduced into cultivation by
the well-known Dutch firm of C. G. Van Tubergen, Jun.,
of Haarlem. The flowers of these hybrids are of great size

16 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

and substance, and moreover begin to open about the end
of May, a full fortnight before the majority of the older
forms. It would be difficult to specify as particularly
worthy of notice any of these new hybrids, for all those
that have up to the present been distributed well deserve
a place in any collection.

Of the older and cheaper varieties, mention must be
made of Thunderbolt, a very vigorous plant with flowers
of a peculiar mixture of brown, yellow, and purple ; of
Leander, a sweet-scented yellow flower ; of lusitanica,
which is perhaps a wild species and has wide petalled
flowers of yellow and white ; and also of "filifolia," which
is remarkably early, with large blue flowers. The name
filifolia is misleading, because it already belongs to a wild
species which has only just been reintroduced into cultiva-
tion, a species that is quite distinct from the Spanish Iris.

Those gardeners whose soil is too cold and wet for the
success of I. xiphium must console themselves by the re-
flection that it is probably admirably suited to the Pyre-
nean /. xiphioides, or English Iris. This species has larger
flowers than the Spanish Iris and stouter foliage. It has
been in cultivation for centuries, and now exists in a host
of colour varieties. It is hard to advise others in the
choice of colours, and the best method is to note down the
names of the most pleasing varieties in the groups that
will certainly be seen at shows in July. Some will admire
the flecked or mottled forms, by which the lover of self
colours will not be attracted, and each must choose for
himself.

It is a thousand pities that the most glorious of all the
xiphion species, /. tingitana, is such a shy flowerer. The

THE JUNO GROUP 17

broad falls are light blue with a brilliant central line of gold
colour, and the standards of a slightly deeper shade of purple.
To ensure success the bulbs must be very liberally treated
with old manure, placed some inches below their bases, and
given the warmest and most sheltered corner of the garden.
Even then success is not certain, for a late spring frost
may kill all our hopes of seeing /. tingitana in flower.

The Algerian /. juncea is valuable for its deep yellow
colour, but it is rather tender, and often fails to ripen its
bulbs after flowering. I. Boissieri is even more difficult to
keep, but it is worth an effort for the sake of its brilliantly
coloured flowers of contrasting blue and red purple, set
off by a scanty beard of golden hairs. With one rare
exception, namely, /. Tubergeniana, I. Boissieri is the only
bulbous Iris that can boast of a conspicuous beard.

CHAPTER V

BULBOUS IRISES (continued)

III. THE JUNO GROUP

THIS section is based upon the peculiarity of the structure
of the bulbs, which still retain some thick fleshy roots even
in the resting state.

The first to flower is /. alata from the western shores of
the Mediterranean. It is now so largely imported that bulbs
can be purchased for little more than a penny apiece, and
at this price it may be well worth a shilling or two to ensure

B

i8 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

a display of /. alata in November, December, and January.
These freshly imported bulbs, that have been thoroughly
ripened in the heat of the southern sun, can be relied upon
to flower well, especially if they can be obtained with their
fleshy roots more or less intact. Bulbs without these roots
should be refused, for the resultant plants will be weak and
puny, and probably unable to develop their flowers. They
do fairly well in deep pots, but it is not an Iris that readily
lends itself to forcing. After flowering either in the open or
in pots, the plants may as well be thrown away, for it is
almost impossible so to ripen off the growth that sound
bulbs are formed for the succeeding year. With careful
nursing the bulbs can possibly be brought on to flowering
size in about two years' time, but is it worth the trouble
involved, since success is always uncertain ?

The Eastern Mediterranean species, /. palcestina, is an
even worse offender in this respect ; its bulbs are weaker
than those of /. alata, and even fresh bulbs cannot all be
relied upon to flower.

As to the actual flowers, those of /. alata are usually of
a deep blue-purple, and should be of large size, about four
inches or more across. The breadth of the conspicuously
winged falls is some compensation for the minuteness of the
horizontal "standards." White-flowered forms of the Iris
are not infrequently found, and there is also obtainable a
form called marginata, in which the deep blue falls have a
distinct, light edge. In /. palcestina the flowers are smaller
and vary greatly in colour, from a fairly deep blue through
turquoise to green and greenish-yellow.

In Eastern Asia Minor there occur several forms of a
small and wonderfully beautiful Iris, called I.persica, which at

VARIETIES OF I. PERSICA 19

its best has flowers of white and sea-green, with a brown-
purple patch on the blade of the falls. It has been in culti-
vation in England for some centuries, but is apparently
becoming rarer owing to the fact that it is not a strong
grower.

In light, sandy soil it is most disappointing, but would
probably do better in heavy loam. Even then it would
need to be kept dry and well ripened in summer. The
chief difficulty with regard to it probably lies in the fact
that the trade supplies are grown in heavy soil and lose all
their roots when torn up for sale. The result is that newly
purchased bulbs are weakly, and often exhaust themselves
by attempting to flower in their first season. This should
be discouraged by removing the bud, if it is hoped to
establish the plant. It will then probably form a stronger
bulb for the following year, together with an offset
or two.

Besides the type there are at least two varieties which
are well worth growing and which appear to have better
constitutions, namely, /. Tauri from the Cilician Taurus
and 7. Heldreichii (or stenophylla) from a somewhat lower
elevation in the same neighbourhood. 7. Tauri has rather
small but brilliant flowers of deep purple lined with gold,
while those of 7. Heldreichii are a combination of blue-
black blotches on a grey-blue ground.

Besides these there are other colour forms of 7. persica
that are much more rarely seen in cultivation. A variety,
purpurea, is wholly of a warm claret-purple colour. One
called galatica, from the region in which it is found, has
flowers of pale, dingy yellow, tipped with brown-purple,
and another with large flowers of silver-grey flushed and

20 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

blotched with dull purple has been named Sieheana, after
its discoverer, Herr Siehe.

So far the Juno Irises enumerated are all stemless,
though the flowers are raised on perianth tubes of some
length ; moreover their flowering season is over by the
middle of March. As the season advances, so also do the
stems of the Junos increase in height. The persicas are
usually followed, and often overtaken, by the Mesopotamia!!
/. sindjarensisf which grows about a foot high, and opens in
succession five or six rather small flowers in the axils of the
leaves, which are arranged on alternate sides of the stem,
much in the same way as in the Maize or Indian Corn.
The colour of the flowers is usually some shade of blue.
In some examples the tint is deep, in others it is very pale,
or it may even be a beautiful turquoise colour. There is
also a pure white form of this Iris in cultivation.
/. sindjarensis is not perhaps a very striking Iris, and it was
left to the ingenuity of Mr. J. Hoog, of the firm of C. G.
Van Tubergen, of Haarlem, to combine the orange central
ridge of /. persica with the stronger constitution and larger
flowers of /. sindjarensis. The resulting hybrid known as
Sindpers is one of the most beautiful of all bulbous Irises.
The exact shade of colour seems to vary from season to
season and in different soils, but at its best it is a most
brilliant turquoise blue. It is a most desirable Iris, and
one that is not difficult to grow or to keep. It is also
very floriferous. Another cross, Sindpur, was raised from
sindjarensis fertilised by pollen of /. persica purpurea. It
is dwarf er than /. sindjarensis and very floriferous, with
flowers of a dark purple colour. One form is paler, and has
been aptly christened Amethyst. The reverse cross, Pursind,

OTHER JUNO SPECIES 21

is scarcely so pleasing, for the combination of reddish-
purple and grey does not produce a brilliant colour.

Before sindjarensis and its hybrids are over, the
brilliant 7. Rosenbachiana from Turkestan should be in
flower. It is unfortunately rarely seen, and as its price
is rising, it is presumably difficult to keep even in Holland.
Early in March there appear through the bare ground
broad, pale nipple-shaped shoots which soon show the
tips of the green leaves ; then in a day or two, if the
weather is at all warm or sunny, up shoots the flower on
a long 4-inch perianth tube. It is usually some com-
bination of white, crimson, and gold, but this is a very
variable Iris, and some more recently discovered forms
have a very wide range of colours. Each bulb may
produce as many as three flowers in succession.

Shortly after this, the white form of 7. orchioides usually
opens, closely followed by ccerulea and sulphurea. Why
the colour varieties should usually bloom in advance of the
golden-yellow type it is difficult to see, but this has been
the experience of some years' cultivation. Each of these,
when well grown, produces five or six flowers, which open
in succession down the foot-high stem. Simultaneously
we may expect to see the brilliantly coloured 7. Warleyensis
of deep purple with a yellow central patch, blue crest, and
pale edges to the falls, and the more delicately coloured
7. Willmottiana, with its deep lavender flowers, conspicu-
ously blotched with white and broad, glistening leaves of
deep green.

Lastly, and perhaps most beautiful of all, comes 7.
bucharica from Bokhara, with creamy-white flowers with
clear golden-yellow tips to the broad falls. This grows

22 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

about 15 inches or more in height, and a clump of this Iris in
bloom with several flowers on each stem is a wonderful
sight in the middle of April.

It might be thought impossible that such plants should
be absolutely hardy. On this point it may be said that
very severe late frost may nip the flowers that are actually
open at the time, but the unopened buds are uninjured, and
quickly open to fill the place of those that are over.

There are many other rare Juno Irises, some of which
have never yet been introduced into cultivation. The
mountains of Turkestan and Bokhara seem to be a perfect
treasure-house of floral gems, but until they become more
accessible, we shall presumably not know all their contents.
Mention may, however, be made of one or two of the rarer
species which are occasionally met with in cultivation. /.
Fosteriana from the Afghan frontier is distinguished by its
yellow falls and deep purple standards, which form a most
striking contrast. Of /. Tubergeniana, a yellow-flowered
species, the most conspicuous feature is the distinct beard
of scanty hairs. Neither of these is very easy to keep alive,
and there is indeed some danger of their dying wholly out
of cultivation. Plants of both species seem to weaken
themselves so much by the effort of flowering that it is some
years before the bulbs become strong enough to flower
again.

The tall Junos do not seem to be fastidious as to soil,
so long as it is moderately rich and not too dry while
growth is active. Sir Michael Foster advised a heavy rather
than a too light soil, but they can certainly be grown with
very fair success in well-enriched sand.

THE ONCOCYCLUS IRISES 23

CHAPTER VI
THE ONCOCYCLUS IRISES

MOST gardeners with any enterprise have at some time or
other invested in a rhizome or two of the mystic Oncocyclus
Irises and as many — at least in England — have been
grievously disappointed with the result, if not immediately,
then certainly in the end. The truth is that these inhabit-
ants of Syria and Persia are homesick for the baking sun
of their native haunts, and never consent to stay long with
us. Even if they flower, they seem to cry out as did the
Roman gladiators, " Morituri te salutant" (The doomed
salute thee), and few escape their doom. However, they
count among their number the largest flowered of all Irises,
Gatesii, whose standards and falls are five inches and more
across, and the most beautiful of all, Lortetii, which is deli-
cately veined and minutely dotted with purple and crimson
on a creamy ground. The circular standards incline
slightly inwards so as to meet, and the falls reflex to show
their broad beards and curl so far back as to touch the
stem. Indeed, the whole flower seems to hug itself with
delight in its own beauty.

What would we not give to have /. iberica flowering as
freely with us as does /. pumila ? And yet in its native
haunts in the Caucasus, and even in gardens in that region, it
is every bit as floriferous. A photograph of a long edging of
these Irises with their white standards and curious, hanging
concave falls puts one out of conceit with the few scattered

24 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

flowers that reward in England much pains in preparing
the soil and in choosing a site, and no small outlay.

Those who think they can see design in everything
would perhaps be puzzled to account for the weird shape of
the fitly named paradoxa. It is indeed the " unexpected."
The standards are normal, but the falls are more like the
back of an elongated humble-bee than anything else. To
be prosaic, they are strap-shaped with a rounded tip, and
not more than half an inch wide. The whole length and
width is covered with thick, velvety hairs of black purple,
except that there is left uncovered near the tip of the falls a
mark of the shape that heralds might call a chevron. This
is of a dull pinkish colour. No one who has ever grown
and flowered this Iris wishes to be without it, and therefore
its price grows and grows, far more readily, indeed, than
the plant itself.

One of the rarest and also one of the most beautiful
Irises of this section is the clear yellow urmiensis from
Northern Persia. It is fervently to be hoped that the Persians
will one day reduce themselves and their distracted Govern-
ment to order, for the present unrest in Persia — a truly
journalistic euphemism — makes it almost impossible to get
fresh supplies of this Iris, and we can only speculate as to
whether its brilliant colour would have any marked effect on
hybrids obtained from its pollen.

It is always a matter for surprise that the gardeners of
the south of France seem to have chosen for cultivation
on a large scale the gloomiest of all the Oncocyclus Irises.
Susiana is sold in all the flower markets of the south, and
sometimes the great buds find their way on to the barrows
in the streets of London. The present writer has before

PLATE III
I. SUSIANA— A TYPICAL ONCOCYCLUS IRIS

COLD STORAGE IN WINTER 27

now bought a handful at a penny apiece, all of which
unfolded magnificent flowers, in shape and size at least, if
not perhaps in colour. For it cannot be denied that there
is some truth in the criticism that this Iris looks as though
it were made of wet newspaper on which the type had run.

If any still wish to try their luck with these mysterious
plants, let them contrive a bed in the sunniest, hottest, and
driest corner of their gardens. There let them make up a
bed of rich soil, but without fresh manure. If the soil is
heavy, so much the better. The surface should slope
sharply to the south, for this will help to throw off super-
fluous moisture. The rhizomes will probably be obtained in
the autumn, but it is important to get them early, for about
October they begin to shoot whether they are in the ground
or out of it. The best thing to do is to pack them up in a
box just as they arrive and send them off at once to some
cold storage establishment, with instructions that they should
be kept at a temperature of about 30° until the last week in
February. (If there is no local establishment, application
might be made to the Imperial Cold Storage Co., of South
Tottenham, London, where the experiment was first made
by the author.) They may then be planted on the prepared
bed, and when the flowers are over, the beds must either be
covered and kept dry till growth begins again, or the roots
must be lifted, dried, and re-stored.

Having mentioned the chief members of this group, we
will pass over the numerous interesting and rarer species,
such as Bismarckiana, Elizabethce, Marice, and lupina,
which will all be found attractively described in catalogues,
and which, when they do flower, are weird and wonderful
rather than really beautiful. Fortunately there is a closely

28 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

allied group — Regelia — whose members are distinguished
by being far more floriferous and far more amenable to
cultivation in England. These Regelia Irises are so called
after a certain Dr. Regel, who, as Director of the St. Peters-
burg Botanic Garden, was able to introduce into cultivation
so many plants from Central Asia. The finest is Leichtlinii,
with flowers of a fawn or brown colour shot with electric
blue and gracefully waved at the edge, but the best known
is /. Korolkowii, after one of the numerous Russian generals
or explorers, who have enriched our gardens and come near
to breaking our jaws. Iris lovers may be thankful that
Przewaldski found no new Irises, though he brought back
many specimens of Mongolian and Central Asian species.
Gentiana P-r-z may be as good as its name is bad, but one
such name is enough.

When even Sir Michael Foster in his marvellous garden
on the south slope of a hill at Shelford found that the
Oncocyclus species could not be induced to settle down
there permanently, he set to work to infuse as many of
their characteristics as possible into more vigorous plants.
He experimented in two directions, and in both met with
some success. Plants of the Regelia section fertilised
with Oncocyclus pollen produced hybrids far stronger
and more vigorous than either parent. The flower
combined the shape and to some extent the colouring
of the father with the floriferous character and general
habit of the mother. Similar hybrids raised by the
Haarlem firm of Van Tubergen are now widely distributed,
and, though scarcely sufficiently distinct one from another,
they form a very valuable addition to gardens.

It is difficult to specify any particularly good specimens

VARIOUS HYBRIDS 29

among these hybrids, but the warm, golden-brown colour
of Charon, the size and shapeliness of Persephone, and
the evident traces of Leichtlinii in Hera are all worthy of
mention.

Foster also managed to combine iberica and paradoxa
with various bearded Irises, such as pallida, variegata, and
possibly sambucina. The habit of these hybrids is inter-
mediate between the two parents ; they are stronger than
the Oncocyclus, but hardly so vigorous as their other
parents. In some the influence of paradoxa is most
marked. The falls become narrow and have a broad,
thick beard of blackish hairs. In iberica x pallida, of
which there were no fewer than fourteen varieties, the
flowers call to mind those of both the parents. The colour
is rather that of pallida, in which species the orange beard
is, however, overcast with the dingy brown of iberica.

Since Foster's death several of these hybrids have fallen
into the hands of dealers, and some have been rechristened.
At Shelford the best of them had Persian names, obtained
from some professor of Oriental languages, who had also
supplied the interpretation thereof. Unfortunately this
was lost, but names such as Dilkush remain. These
plants are undoubtedly very interesting, but scarcely worth
the inflated prices that are now asked for them.

Another interesting result of the same kind was obtained
by the present author by combining the colour and habit of
a claret olbiensis — a dwarf bearded Iris from the south-
eastern corner of France — with the conspicuous veining
of Korolkowii. Here, too, the yellow and the blackish
beards combined to form a dingy brown, and apparently
followed no law of Mendelian dominance. Nearly every

30 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

feature in all these hybrids is a kind of compromise
between the characteristics of the two parents.

All these hybrids are more amenable to ordinary culti-
vation than the pure Oncocyclus and Regelia species.
Indeed, those with Pogoniris blood in them may be left
in the open ground all the year round, but the Regelio-
cyclus hybrids are certainly the better for an annual lifting
when the leaves begin to wither early in July. They
should not be planted again until October.

For those who contemplate hybridisation, it may be as
well to insert here a warning that the Oncocyclus blood
does not tend to produce clear, bright colour. It imparts
a certain gloom and dinginess, which is peculiar and un-
doubtedly interesting scientifically, but from the purely
horticultural and decorative point of view, it is useless.
Moreover, 7. Leichtlinii, which is in some ways one of the
most beautiful of all Irises, seems always to produce the
most indescribably ugly offspring when crossed with any
bearded Iris. This at any rate has been the character-
istic of all the specimens that the author has either raised
himself or seen in the gardens of others.

CHAPTER VII
THE EVANSIA SECTION

THE members of this group of rhizomatous Irises are
distinguished by the fact that the falls 'are provided with
a more or less jagged crest that takes the place of the beard
in other Irises.

THE EVANSIA SECTION 31

All the species are well worth growing. The earliest
to flower and the plant that has been longest known is 7.
japonica. Unfortunately in most parts of England this
is a greenhouse plant, not because it is not hardy but
because it will not flower out-of-doors, owing to the fact
that in March and April, when it should flower, we do not
get enough heat to enable it to throw up its stems. In
pots, however, or in a border in a cool house this Iris is
well worth growing. The broad, deep, green leaves with
their polished surface provide a delightful background for
the much branched stem with its numerous pale, lilac,
crested flowers. The edges of the petals are waved and
crimped, and the name 7. fimbriata, that has also been
applied to it, is not inappropriate.

When this Iris is grown in pots, it flowers best, pro-
bably, if it is left alone and allowed to become somewhat
pot-bound. Water may be withheld when growth becomes
less active after the flowers are over, and the rhizomes will
then ripen.

The individual flowers are about 3 inches across,
flat in outline, owing to the fact that the standards are
spreading rather than erect. Each flower lasts only about
twenty-four hours, but each spathe contains three or four
buds, and the numerous heads of flowers on the stem
prolong the display for several weeks.

Varieties with variegated leaves are said to exist, and
will doubtless appeal to those who appreciate such freaks.

A better Iris from the garden point of view is /. tectorum,
so called because it grows on the ridge of thatched roofs
in China and Japan. This has large flowers of the same
shape as 7. japonica and the other members of this class.

32 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

but is of a deep blue-purple colour, slightly mottled with
blotches of a darker shade. A conspicuous feature is the
jagged crest, which is white with brown markings. There
appears to be something about the constitution of this Iris
that we do not yet understand. It comes very readily from
seed, and flowers within eighteen months of the first ap-
pearance of the seedlings, but in subsequent years vigorous
plants are apt to lie almost dormant, or at best to produce
weak growths. If it will grow on roofs, it can hardly be
a gross feeder, and yet it seems to do best when frequently
transplanted and grown in good light soil. The trans-
plantation should of course take place immediately the
flowers are over, or even before they have faded, and the
position chosen should be warm and sheltered.

Besides the type, there is a beautiful white-flowered
form, the crest of which is marked with gold. It is not
usually quite as vigorous as the type, nor does each stem
produce as many flowers, but, when well grown, it is one
of the most beautiful of all Irises. It resembles the type
in coming easily from seed, and is extremely accommodating
in that the seedlings all come pure white. At any rate,
this was the result of raising over a hundred seedlings,
among which there was not the slightest variation. There
is t>ne appeal that must be made on its behalf, and that
is that it should always be called /. tectorum alba instead
of the monstrous I. tectorum album of the catalogue writer.

The Himalayan cousin of /. tectorum is distinctly disap-
pointing. /. Milesii promises great things by its vigorous
growth and yard-high leaves. Up come the tall stems,
overtopping even these big leaves, and at last there unfold
the insignificant flowers, barely half the size of those of

THE SMALLEST EVANSIA 33

/. tectonnn. They are curiously mottled with two shades
of pale and deep red-purple, and the characteristic crest
of the group is conspicuous. The gardener's obvious
course is to hybridise /. Milesii with pollen of /. tectorum,
and this is perhaps one of the few cases where a hybrid
Iris would be better than the parent. But 7. Milesii has
some deep-rooted objection to being hybridised, and in
spite of the many attempts that have been made no hybrid
of this species is yet known. With its own pollen it is, on
the other hand, readily fertile, and it sets seed in abundance.
There is in commerce a form called magnifica, but any plant
worthy of this name is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain.

Having mentioned the largest of the Evansia, we will
take next the smallest, 7. gracilipes, another Japanese plant.
It likes a somewhat cool position in moist soil, where its
slender rhizomes will not be parched by drought. It has
narrow, grassy leaves 9 inches or a foot in height, and
a slender, branching stem of about the same height, and
three heads of flowers. The latter agree in shape with
those of 7. tectorum, and are of a delicate pale pinkish-lilac
colour. This graceful little plant deserves to be far more
widely cultivated than it appears to be. That it is little
known is perhaps due to the fact that it is not always quite
easy to establish. This is, however, hardly a matter of
astonishment, for such a frail little rhizome can scarcely
be expected to resist the effects of alternate frost and thaw
unless it is firmly anchored in the ground. It is therefore
inadvisable to shift this plant when growth has finished for
the season. It should rather be moved when growth is
active.

Of the southernmost representative of the Iris family

C

34 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

on the mainland of Asia, namely; /. speculatrix, little need
be said, for it is not now in cultivation, although a supply
of seeds has lately been obtained from Hong- Kong, where
the Iris is abundant on the hills behind the town.

The two remaining members of the group are American,
namely, /. cristata and 7. lacustris. The former grows in
damp gravel beside streams in the Central States, and the
latter, which is merely a dwarf copy of cristata, is only
found on the shores of Lake Huron. They both creep
rapidly over the surface of the ground by means of running
rhizomes, and both can be easily propagated by taking off
the side-growths, which will be found ready to root shortly
after the flowers fade. These two Irises have a form of
seed that is found in no other species at present in
cultivation, but the curious appendage which is attached
to them when fresh does not seem to assist in germination,
but rather the reverse.

The flowers of /. cristata are of some shade of lilac
with a low but distinct crest running along the centre
of the haft of the falls. The stem is only an inch or so
in length, but the tube is about twice as long. The
flowers of 7. lacustris only differ in being somewhat
smaller, and usually of a darker shade of colour.

CHAPTER VIII
"GERMAN" IRISES

THE name " German," commonly applied to a very large
number of Irises, is in no way specially appropriate. As a

"GERMAN" IRISES 35

matter of fact, very few Irises are found wild in Germany,
and those that are natives of that country are not the
parents of the plants now known by the name.

The explanation lies in the fact that, roughly speaking,
all the Irises comprised under this title resemble, in growth
and shape, the common purple flag, of which the botanical
name is I. germanica. Even as applied to this plant, the
name is not particularly appropriate, for no certain instance
is known of the plant growing wild anywhere in Germany,
while forms of it extend from Spain to Nepal. Moreover,
its various forms appear to have been long in cultivation, and
it is impossible to say that the plant is growing where no
human agency is likely ever to have placed it.

For garden purposes, " German " Irises are usually
divided under such names as germanicae, pallidae,
variegatae, &c., according as they most closely resemble
one or other of certain supposed wild species. Without
entering into the botanical details of these various species,
it may be useful to give here a list, under the usual
headings, of the most effective garden forms. Endless
varieties are in existence, and the number is constantly
increasing, though a new name does not always mean a
new Iris.

The subject of the ultimate parentage of this group of
plants is very difficult, and though the method of solution
that suggests itself, namely, breeding experiments, is
obvious enough, it is unfortunately almost impossible
in England, owing to the fact that most of the plants
which appear to be wild, and the possible parents of
which we are in search, prove in our gardens to be almost
invariably sterile. Thus the so-called type of /. germanica

36 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

is nearly always defective in its sexual organs or else its
pollen appears to be imperfect, with the result that, though
large capsules sometimes form and develop, they prove
in the end to contain nothing but undeveloped ovules.
In Southern Europe, however — in the south of France,
for example — the problem might be solved, for there
apparently /. germanica is fertile, to judge from the
numerous colour forms of it that may be found in cultiva-
tion. It would, for example, be extremely interesting to
know the result of crossing /. germanica and /. pallida
with pollen of /. variegata and vice versa, for it is almost
certain that the garden forms with yellow standards and
brown falls are derived from /. variegata, but we do not
know the origin of such plants as /. sambucina, I. squalens,
and /. lurida, nor even whether they are really good
species.

THE GERMANICA SECTION

The common purple flag is too well known to need
much description, but there are other forms of it, either
local or of seedling origin, which deserve to be much better
known than they usually are. For instance, a dwarf and
rather bluer form comes from Fontarabie, while the giant-
flowered macrantha was sent to Foster from Amas in Asia
Minor. In colour it also is slightly bluer than the ordinary
germanica type. Quite recently MM. Vilmorin-Andrieux
of Paris have introduced an improvement even on Amas
under the name of Oriflamme. This is indeed a noble plant,
growing nearly 3 feet high in good soil, and bearing
immense flowers. In colour it differs little, if at all, from
the two shades of blue-purple of Amas.

THE GERMANICA SECTION 37

Another good "germanica," of a totally different shade
of colour, came to Foster from Kharput in Asia Minor, and
is named accordingly. It is remarkable for its distinctly
red-purple colouring — the standards being, as usual, lighter
in shade than the falls — and for the great length of all its
segments. If it has a fault, it is that the standards are of
such delicate texture that they very easily feel the effects of
rough weather, and collapse. It should therefore be grown
in a rather sheltered position well back in a border, where
its flowers may get some protection from the wind.

The darkest coloured of all the true germanicas is /. nepal-
ensis, whose origin is sufficiently indicated in the name.
It is about the same height as the common germanica,
perfectly hardy, and of a deep red-black colour, the standards
in this case being practically of the same shade as the falls.

Somewhat similar to this is /. Kochii, of a dark black-
purple colour, nearly uniform throughout the whole flower.

A very beautiful, almost blue relative of /. germanica
has been introduced under the name of /. Madonna. It
is probably a wild plant, and, coming from a southern
latitude, it seems unable to grow with the vigour of the
other kinds in our cooler climate. It is somewhat dwarf,
and both falls and standards are of a distinctly blue shade of
purple. It is still, unfortunately, somewhat rare, but will
make a notable addition to any group of German Irises by
reason of its unique colouring. Whether the author is
justified or not in holding the opinion that the well-known
/. albicans is really the albino form of this /. Madonna, the
fact remains that the former is the best pure- white bearded
Iris that we possess, although it is dwarfer and scarcely
perhaps so robust as /. florentina, with somewhat grey-

38 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

or blue-white flowers and a more widely branching stem.
In addition, there is also in existence, though it is more rare
in cultivation, a white form of /. germanica, which corre-
sponds closely to the atropurpurea or deep violet-black
form.

Taken as a whole, the germanicae are the earliest to
flower of all the so-called German Irises, and are at their
best in May — at any rate in the south of England. Unless
they are banished to sunless corners or choked in the " wild
garden," they can usually be relied upon to flower well. It
is seldom that they suffer from such a catastrophe as befell
them this year (1911), when the extremely hard frost and
cutting east wind of the first days of April literally nipped
all the buds of the typical /. germanica that were not grow-
ing in very sheltered positions, while the stems were still
only a few inches long, and could only be found by cutting
open the bases of the tufts of the leaves.

THE PALLIDA GROUP

This group takes its name from some South European
plants, which, as compared with germanicas, are certainly
paler, both as regards the flowers and the foliage, which
is very glaucous. They are also distinguished by the curious
spathes, which assume the appearance of whitish paper or
parchment even before the tips of the buds emerge from
them. The typical pallida has a tall stem that grows to a
height of 3 feet and is closely set in the upper part with
numerous, pale lavender flowers, which, in the sunlight, at
any rate, have a faint, rosy tint. The conspicuous beard
is composed of thickly-set orange-coloured hairs. An even

THE PALLIDA GROUP 39

more striking plant is the Dalmatian pallida, sometimes
known as Princess Beatrice. The colour is very similar to
that of the type, but the flowers have more substance and
the plants have a sturdier appearance, although the stems
do not rise to such a height, nor do they carry quite so
many flowers. For some reason or other, this plant is slow
of increase. It seems to put so much of its strength into
producing its huge flowers of wonderful substance that it
has little energy left to form much new growth for succeed-
ing years.

In this respect, it is surpassed by a rather darker-
coloured form of similar habit, known as Albert Victor.
This grows more freely, and it is a pity that it has not quite
such a clear, bright colour-scheme as Princess Beatrice.

However incongruous it may seem, there are some
pallidas that are distinctly dark in colour. For instance,
Foster had one form from Monte Brione, of which the
flowers are a uniform dark red-lilac or lavender-purple,
and in most collections similar forms may be found under
varying names.

To this group, too, belong the numerous varieties,
whose flowers are in colour an approach to pink. One
of the best known, of a pale shade, is Queen of May, Her
Majesty being somewhat deeper, and the colour perhaps
not quite so clear. The newer Trautlieb is of a soft rose
colour. A dwarf pink, and one moreover that is very flori-
ferous, is Mrs. Allan Grey, which was a hybrid obtained
by Foster by fertilising 7. Cengialtii with pollen of Queen
of May. Cengialtii itself and its variety Loppio come from
the slopes adjacent to Monte Baldo on the north-eastern
side of the Lago di Garda. Cengialtii with its clear blue

40 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

purple flowers is the more charming of the two, and very
beautiful hybrids of it can be obtained by fertilising it
with pollen of the typical pallida. The result is usually
a series of plants intermediate in habit between Cengialtii
and pallida, very free flowering, of various shades of dis-
tinctly blue-purple, in some cases set off with a most
striking orange beard.

The varieties of pallida are endless, but perhaps the
present list may be closed by a reference to two plants
which have in them a good deal of blood that is not
pallida, but which are conveniently taken here. They are
both rosy-purple of a much deeper shade than Queen of
May, and may be obtained under the names of Madame
Pacquitte and Cytheree.

THE VARIEGATA GROUP

The wild /. variegata is chiefly found in Austria and
Hungary, and has clear yellow standards and falls that are
more or less completely covered with dark red-brown or
black-brown veins, which often coalesce and run together.
From this come all the varieties with clear yellow stan-
dards of varying shades and usually with brownish falls.
It is commonly supposed that Innocenza is a white-
flowered form of variegata, and it certainly has many of
the characteristics of the type. The pure white segments
are slightly reticulated at the base, and the fall has a golden
beard.

Of the variegatae a good example is Gracchus, with
particularly bright, clear yellow standards and falls closely
veined with red-brown on a white ground. John Eraser

PLATE IV
I. JACQUINIANA— A GOOD "GERMAN" IRIS

THE AMCENA GROUP 43

is deeper in colour, and the falls are distinctly of a rich
mahogany shade. Maori King is even more richly coloured,
and the falls are edged with gold, while the finest of all
is perhaps King of Irises, a recent introduction from Ger-
many. In several instances the brown veins have entirely
disappeared from the falls, giving us such clear yellow
varieties as aurea (which must not be confused with the
beardless species from Kashmir) and Mrs. Neubronner.

With the other sections of " German " Irises we are
on less certain grounds, when we attribute their origin
to any wild species, but it may be convenient here to keep
the conventional names for the groups.

THE AMCENA GROUP

This name has been given to those Irises of which the
standards are pure white while the falls are of some shade
of blue or violet. Of these one of the most striking is
Thorbeck, with deep velvety-violet falls, contrasting strongly
with the white standards. For this, the inferior variety
Victorine is often substituted, but it is not so pleasing,
for the white of the standards is marred by a few
irregular blotches of the same colour as the falls. Even
more handsome is an unnamed seedling of Black
Prince, a late-flowering Iris which will be mentioned
among the neglecta group. Here the standards are
white, and the falls of the deepest velvety-violet with a
conspicuous silvery border. The flowers closely resemble
in shape the somewhat spreading outline of Black Prince.
It may be of interest to record here that self-fertilised seed

44 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

of this last gave seedlings both of the variegata and of
the amcena types as well as others more nearly resembling
itself in colour. In all cases the shape of the flower bore
a distinct likeness to that of Black Prince, and all agreed
in having a pale edge to the falls.

In other members of the amcena group, the falls are
veined with some shade of blue or purple on a white
ground. Of this type, it is almost impossible to give
names, because they are apt to vary with different growers,
and there is no standard by which differences may be
settled. If examples must be given, Glorietta and Morpheus
are names usually applied to two very striking varieties.

THE NEGLECTA GROUP

The above-mentioned Black Prince may perhaps be
taken as a good representative of the neglecta section, the
members of which are characteristic by having both
standards and falls of some shade of blue, though the
former are always of a lighter shade than the latter.
Another very good neglecta variety has been called Perfec-
tion, which is both earlier and taller than Black Prince, but
not quite so rich in colour.

THE SQUALENS GROUP

This group comprises some of the most richly coloured
and also some of the most sombre of all the " German "
Irises. The standards seem always to have yellow and
purple of various shades struggling for the mastery, with
the result that the colour is of a curious lurid tint that
is not easy to describe. The falls are darker, of some

THE PLICATA SECTION 45

shade of purple or brown-crimson. Of this section the
best-known representative is perhaps Jacquiniana, with a
combination of coppery-purple and velvety-maroon. A
new introduction by Vilmorin, Prosper Laugier, is even
finer, being both larger and, if anything, more richly
coloured. A much smaller flower, but one that well repays
close inspection, is borne by an Iris sometimes grown
under the name of Abdul Aziz, though such forms are
so easily raised from seed, that names are really somewhat
misleading. In this, the lilac or deep lavender standards
appear to be sprinkled at the edge with gold dust, and the
effect of the sunlight on this edge is delightful.

THE PLICATA SECTION

The typical /. plicata has white flowers delicately
veined at the edges with pale blue-lilac. It is probably,
if not certainly, of hybrid origin, and the best-known
garden forms are Madame Chereau, Mrs. Reuthe, and
Jeanne d'Arc, though many of the best in existence have
probably received no names at all, or names that are
confined to the gardens where the plants were first raised
from seed and where they are still grown.

CHAPTER IX
OTHER BEARDED IRISES

IN this chapter it is intended to notice some of the various
bearded species that do not readily find a place in the
definite sections of the previous chapter.

46 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

First in order of flowering after 7. pumila, which will
be mentioned elsewhere, is /. chamceiris, to one or other
of the forms of which belong nearly all the varieties of dwarf
Irises, usually known as 7. pumila. Roughly speaking,
when the stem is obvious, the Iris is not a form of
pumila but probably belongs to 7. chamceiris.

Another dwarf Iris of many synonyms is 7. aphylla, to
which all such names as bohemica, hungarica, biflora,
Fieberi, must be referred. Its distinguishing mark is the
fact that the stem divides almost at the ground line.

An early-flowering Iris of uncertain origin, but of
considerable garden value, is 7. flavescens, a pale yellow-
flowered and very free-blooming plant. It is said to come
from the Caucasus, but this is probably a confusion which
has yet to be unravelled.

The true 7. Albertii is still rare, and is remarkable for the
way in which the conspicuous broad veins stop abruptly at
a straight line across the fall at the extremity of the beard.
The colour of the type is a clear light purple, though
a yellow form is also known in cultivation. Foster
obtained a pale pearly-grey form, which is apt to flower
unexpectedly at any time of year, but it is uncertain
whether it is of hybrid origin or merely a seedling.

7. Kashmiriana seems to have a peculiarly unmanage-
able temper, for it always apparently dies out after flowering
well in the first year after its arrival from the East. Its
flowers are of a milky white, with falls that tend to spread
rather than to droop. Foster obtained from it a beautiful
hybrid, with white flowers of great substance and only a
slight blue tinge, which is easier to manage, though it can
hardly be said to be one of the hardiest of garden Irises.

LARGE BEARDED IRISES 47

This is now in commerce as the Shelford variety of
/. Kashmiriana.

There remain to be mentioned some large bearded
Irises from Asia Minor and Syria, whose relationship to one
another is not yet determined. The names that have been
given to them are Biliottii, troyana, cypriana, junonia,
and Ricardii. They are all distinguished by their tall
stature (especially /. Ricardii), by their habit of flowering
late, after the other bearded Irises, and by their large
flowers, usually of two shades of lilac and purple. With
the exception of the first two, which do well under
ordinary conditions, none of them are quite easy to
manage, and they seem to want more heat in summer
than our climate usually vouchsafes them. Several hybrids
have been raised, notably Caterina, Carthusian, and several
fine hybrids, which have come from Ricardii when crossed
with various " German " Irises. These latter have been
raised in France and are not yet in commerce. The flowers
are larger than those of any of the ordinary German Irises,
and in a warm district in heavy soil they should prove
valuable acquisitions to our gardens. The seed parent,
Ricardii, is not a very hardy plant, and has the unfortunate
habit of growing during the winter only to be injured
by late frosts. Later in the season it revives, but there is
of course little hope of flowers being produced under these
circumstances.

More is to be hoped, perhaps, from /. junonia. The
flowers are scarcely so large as those of /. Ricardii, though
they do not fall far short of them. The stem, however,
is nearly as sturdy, and the plant has the great advantage
that it behaves in winter like /. pallida and dies down

48 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

entirely. The new growths are therefore later in making
their appearance, and pass unharmed through the vicis-
situdes of our spring. The standards of /. junonia are of a
pale blue, contrasting sharply with the much deeper
purple-blue falls, which spread rather than droop.

CHAPTER X

THE APOGON IRISES

THE great division of Apogon or beardless Irises contains
many natural groups of species that agree in the possession
of several characteristics, either in habit of growth, in the
shape of the seeds, or in the arrangement of the inflor-
escence. It also contains a number of species that hardly
seem to form part of any group, but stand by themselves,
having in common only the absence of beard. Moreover,
this absence of beard is only relative, for many of the
so-called Apogon Irises are distinctly downy or pubescent
along the haft and on the centre of the blade. Indeed, the
Austrian form of /. spuria was called by one botanist /.
subbarbata, the slightly bearded Iris, on account of the
presence of this pubescence, which, however, is not in any
case so prominent as to lead us to confuse its possessor
with the members of the bearded group.

It will be convenient, perhaps, to take together those
members of the division which form natural groups, follow-
ing roughly the order of their flowering seasons rather than
any alphabetical arrangement. The first group must then

THE APOGON IRISES 49

be that which contains 7. stylosa. Strictly speaking, we
should not use the name stylosa, but that of 7. unguicularis,
which is the senior by a dozen years or so. However that
may be, the Iris, which is best known as 7. stylosa, is by far
the most valuable of the winter-flowering Irises. It comes
from Algeria, and likes a well-drained soil containing lime,
and does best when planted in a warm, dry, sheltered corner
where it will escape the coldest winter winds and catch all
the available sun. It thrives close up against the wall of a
house, especially if that wall happens to have warm pipes
on the other side. The plant is cunningly adapted for repro-
ducing its kind even in winter. It has a very short stem,
which usually does not extend above the ground level.
Then come a pair of long, narrow spathes, each pair being
wrapt in a sheathing leaf and containing one flower. The
ovary is situated at the base of these spathes, and the ovules
have thus three wrappings to keep out the cold. The flower
itself is raised on a long perianth tube, which usually attains
the length of 6 inches. In cold weather the buds should be
searched for among the leaves— a sharp look-out being kept
for slugs and snails at the same time — and picked when the
flowers have risen wholly clear out of the spathes. Some
cafe must be exercised in pulling the buds. It is easy to
crush the slender, delicate tube, and a violent jerk is apt to
break off the stem with perhaps two other immature buds,
which will then fail to develop. If the tube be firmly
grasped and pulled very gently, it is possible with a little
practice to obtain the whole length of the tube uninjured.
It is a joy to watch the buds quiver open in the warmth of
a room on a cold winter's day. They even mistake an
electric lamp for the sun, and quickly respond to its influence,

D

50 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

Their scent is delightful, and the colour is of various shades
of lilac, purple, or even white. In all cases there is a central
band of yellow or orange extending on to the blade.

Many seedling varieties and local forms of this Iris are
known, and it is a curious fact that those forms that flower
earliest usually have foliage long enough to shelter the
flowers, while the late-flowering varieties throw up the
blooms above the foliage.

Among the late-flowering forms there is a variety with
blooms of a dark reddish-purple called " speciosa," and
various dwarf forms from the shores and islands of the
Greek Archipelago. The easternmost form is again more
luxuriant and has much broader foliage than the Greek
plants. It comes from Lazistan, on the coast of the Black
Sea at the south-eastern corner, and is known either as
lazica or pontica.

The flowering season of these various forms extends
from November until about the end of April, and the number
of flowers thrown up by a well-established clump in a warm,
sheltered position is quite amazing. If the roots are dis-
turbed at the proper season, either in April or early in
September, it seems to do no harm, but it is usually not
advisable to break up a clump too much. A wet clay soil
does not suit these Irises in England, even though in Greece
they prosper in the stiffest clay. The heat of our summers
is usually insufficient to penetrate far into the soil unless
this is light and porous, and heavy soils should therefore
be lightened by a liberal admixture of mortar rubble before
planting I. unguicularis.

About the time that the last forms of this Iris go out
of flower, there appear the buds of a little-known species,

A LITTLE-KNOWN SPECIES 51

called /. ruthenica. It is found wild from Transylvania in
Hungary to Peking and Shantung. As is only natural in
the case of such a widely distributed species, local forms are
numerous, and this is fortunate, for some are by no means
floriferous. It is also an Iris that does not accommodate
itself to the nurseryman's habit of moving most herbaceous
plants in the autumn. In common with other Irises that
possess only a very slender rhizome, it must be moved while
growth is active, and roots are consequently being formed.

The flowers appear among the grassy leaves on stems
perhaps only an inch or two or as much as 6 inches long.
The spathes are usually tinged with pink, and each contains
usually only a single flower. The colour is a dark blue,
with white veinings about the bend of the falls. This
species should form close mats of foliage not more than
9 inches or a foot high at most when fully grown, and it
might be far more widely planted in rock gardens, where
it is, at present, almost unknown.

Various confusions have occurred with regard to this
Iris. One nurseryman in England distributed it at an ex-
orbitant price as the American /. Purdyi, though a glance
at the description of the latter would have shown
that its flowers are always yellow. On the other
hand, /. humilis has been sent out from Holland under
this name, and the mistake is not likely to be easily
discovered, for 7. humilis is distinguished by the fact
that it seldom flowers at all. However, the two can be
distinguished even in leaf with a little care. The foliage
of /. humilis is stiff and rigid and somewhat glaucous,
while that of /. ruthenica is of more fan-shaped, drooping
growth without the glaucous bloom.

52 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

There is usually in flower before the end of April, in
company with /. ruthenica, another equally widely distri-
buted Iris, namely, I. ensata. Whenever any kind friend
sends home Iris seeds from Central Asia or even plants from
China, they usually turn out to be /. ensata. It seems to
abound everywhere in Central Asia and Northern China. It
is not very ornamental, but some varieties have flowers re-
markable for the delicacy of their grey-blue colouring and ex-
quisite veinings. A curious feature of this Iris is that the new
growths always appear pale yellow in spring. The colour
is at once conspicuous in an Iris garden, and does not occur
in any other species to anything like the same extent. The
flowers appear among the leaves usually before the foliage
is more than half grown. In Central Asia, where the
change from winter to spring is more sudden and com-
plete than with us, this Iris appears to throw up its blooms
very quickly, and they thus rise above, or at least to a
level with the leaves. It is not a difficult Iris to grow, and
appears to have but few likes or dislikes in the matter of soil.

Once May is reached, it becomes difficult to keep to
any strictly chronological order, for this month and June
are the height of the Iris season. Usually the next Apogon
to flower after ruthenica and ensata is an American species
which frequently goes by the name of /. Tolmeiana, to which,
however, it is only doubtfully entitled. This is a plant with
a simple, foot-high stem, and two flowers of some shade
of lilac, more or less blotched or marked with yellow at
the junction of haft and blade. It is nearly allied to the
mountain forms of /. longipetala, a species possessing a
taller stem that sometimes bears a side branch and always
has three or four flowers in its spathe. Sir Michael Foster

THE CALIFORNIAN SPECIES 53

crossed these two species and obtained some very flori-
ferous hybrids, which are now obtainable under the awk-
ward but informing name of Tollong (Tolmeianaxlongi-
petala).

The true /. longipetala has larger flowers, the falls being
veined with deep violet on a grey-white ground, and the
standards being plain lilac. These two Irises and their
hybrid offspring are some of the few American species that
apparently succeed in calcareous soil. Foster was practi-
cally unable to grow in the wonderful Shelford garden any
other of the beautiful Californian species, which with the
exception of /. longipetala are lime-haters.

As these Californian plants have been mentioned, it
will perhaps be best to give an account of them next.
They are as little known as they are beautiful. Two things
seem to have contributed to keep them out of our gardens.
The first is undoubtedly the great difficulty that is en-
countered in establishing them, when transplantation is
attempted at the favourite autumn season. They must be
moved when in growth, and preferably when growth is
just beginning in spring. An examination of the base of the
side growth will soon show when the new roots are pushing
out, and this is the time when plants may be shifted with
success.

The only other method of obtaining these species is to
raise seedlings and plant them out in summer, when they are
still quite small, in light soil rich in humus and deficient in
lime. Growth will then be rapid, and the plants well able
to stand the winter, and some should flower in the following
year. The members of the Californian group are all
absolutely hardy in England, even though we might have

54 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

expected them to be delicate. Of one species, indeed, /.
Douglasiana, from the neighbourhood of San Francisco, the
foliage is at its best in winter, and a broad clump of the
evergreen leaves is a striking sight at the time when most
other Irises are looking their worst, or have hidden their
heads entirely beneath the surface.

The beauty of the flowers of these Irises is, however, well
worth the few elementary precautions that must be taken in
order to establish the plants. /. Douglasiana has the most
bewilderingly variable colour forms, from the deepest violet,
through rosy-lilac, to a pale yellowish-fawn colour. The
stems produce several heads, each bearing several flowers,
so that the display lasts for some weeks.

Another almost equally variable species, both in stature
and in colour, is /. macrosiphon, which, as its name implies,
has a long perianth tube. The stem may be very short or
as much as 6 inches in length, and the colour seems to
vary from a deep purple to pale lavender and even white.
This Iris is rarely seen in cultivation, owing to the difficulty
in establishing the plant to which allusion has already been
made.

A closely allied pair of Californian species consists of 7.
bracteata and /. Purdyi. In both the flowers are yellow, the
shade being somewhat deeper in /. bracteata, and the falls
have the same curious network of brown-crimson veins.
The difference between the plants lies in the fact that 7.
bracteata has a very short perianth tube, while that of 7.
Purdyi is about 2 inches in length. The leaves of the
former are scanty in number and very tough, about ^-j
inch broad, while those of the latter are more numerous
and only about half the width.

IRIS TENAX 55

It is not yet certain whether these species are liable to
give colour variations when raised from self-fertilised seed,
but /. bracteata has already produced some delightful and
very free-flowering forms with soft-pink flowers. The seed
parent grew near /. Douglasiana, and it is possible that some
passing bee transferred the pollen of this latter to the flower
of 7. bracteata.

These Calif ornian species seem to run in pairs, for yet
another consists of 7. tenax and 7. Hartwegil. These are
both of slender growth, producing close tufts of narrow
leaves and' stems from 6 inches to i foot in length, each
bearing about three flowers. Botanically, there is really
very little difference between the two. The flowers of 7.
tenax are somewhat larger and the segments of a different
shape. As a garden plant 7. tenax is by far the more valuable.
It ranges in colour from a deep claret colour, with a net-
work of silvery veins on the bend of the falls, through
lilac and pale lavender to a soft pale grey. The foliage,
too, is largely evergreen, and the leaves are of some length
even in the depth of winter. 7. Hartwegii, on the other
hand, has shown no sign of colour variation, being always
of a pale straw shade, and is altogether a somewhat in-
significant little species.

All the Californian Irises delight in a well-drained soil
rich in humus, and should have full sun. They seem to
abhor lime and clay.

We must now return to the Old World, to a widely
distributed group of plants that are characterised by flowers
of the same shape as those of 7. xiphium (the Spanish Iris),
and by the formation of the ovary, which is more or less
three-sided, with a double ridge running down each corner.

56 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

The seeds, too, of all the members of this group closely
resemble one another. Of these, 7. graminea has been in
cultivation in England for at least two centuries and
probably longer. Its home is in Southern Europe, and
it owes its name to its close-growing tufts of grass-like
leaves, among which the numerous flowers are almost
hidden. It is not a very ornamental Iris, but those who
like sweet-scented flowers will value this species more
than most others, for its perfume is that of a ripe greengage.
It is true that among seedlings some specimens are much
more strongly scented than others, but a little care in
selection will soon eliminate the worthless plants.

Very similar to 7. graminea, but smaller, is 7. hutnilis,
which is distinguished for its habit of sulking and refusing
to flower. Probably we gardeners are to blame and not the
plant, but the fact remains that even the ingenuity of the
Dutchmen has not yet succeeded in making this plant
flower. Herbarium specimens show that it flowers well in
its home in Transylvania and in the Caucasus, and that it
differs from 7. graminea by having scarcely any stem at all
and an inch or two of perianth tube. In cultivation the
author had never seen flowers of this Iris until one of his
plants flowered in 1911.

We come next to I. spuria, the various forms of which
are perhaps more perplexing than those of any other
species. Its representatives range from Spain to Kashmir,
and the names that botanists have given to the various
local forms are legion. In Spain it is a slender plant
with somewhat thick and rigid, rather glaucous, narrow
leaves, and has a stem about a foot in height producing
a single head of two or three flowers, packed one above

PLATE V

ONE OF THE NEW GIANT XIPHIUMS OR
"DUTCH" IRISES

A COMMON ASIATIC IRIS 59

the other close to the axis, on pedicels of unequal length.
In Kashmir its relative grows 3 or 4 feet high, and bears
a tall stem with about three closely packed heads — each
bearing several flowers. The colour also varies : it may
be yellow or a mixture of yellow and white, or it may be
some shade of lavender blue more or less veined with
white.

A Central Asian form of this Iris has received the name
of Giildenstadtiana. It is a poor form, with flowers of
small size unredeemed by any good features. Like most
unwelcome intruders in our gardens, it is a most prolific
seed-bearer, and if ever, after much correspondence with
those in foreign parts, some wonderful Iris seeds arrive,
the chances are that, if and when they at length germinate
and finally flower, the grower will find himself in posses-
sion of one more form of this ubiquitous Iris or of the
equally ubiquitous 7. ensata. There is preserved in the
Kew Herbarium a letter from Dr. Lange, a Danish botanist,
who tried to form a collection of Irises soon after the middle
of last century, and who after laboriously getting together a
large number, complained that " the larger part of the Irises
that he had educated from seeds had received improper
names." /. Giildenstadtiana is one of the chief offenders
in company with /. Pseudacorus and /. versicolor, and here
is the explanation. All these seed freely, and the seeds ger-
minate as readily. The consequence is that seedlings come
up among rare or delicate species in the borders of botanical
gardens, and finally choke or oust the legitimate occupants.
The labels still remain, and the seeds are then carelessly col-
lected and distributed in the name of the more desirable
but departed species.

60 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

But to return to the more valuable members of the
spuria group. The Austrian form is capable of giving
good deep blue flowers, and so too is probably the
Caucasian /. spuria Notha. The Kashmir plants are prob-
ably the finest of all those forms with purple as opposed
to yellow flowers, though they are not yet commonly
found in cultivation. However, they do not differ widely
from the hybrids that Sir Michael Foster obtained by
crossing a large yellow-flowered /. Monnieri with pollen
from /. spuria. These hybrids are of various shades of
lavender, or blue-purple, and are showy garden plants.

The best of the yellow-flowered races have been called
ochroleuca, Monnieri, and aurea. The first comes from
Asia Minor, and has large flowers of yellow edged with, 01
rather shading into, white, and grows from 3 to 6 feet high
according to soil and position. Monnieri has wholly
yellow flowers of a deep lemon shade, while aurea is a
Kashmir plant with flowers of a deep golden colour, dis-
tinguished by its crimpled segments. The origin of
Monnieri is veiled in mystery. It was first described as a
garden plant, and the supposed specimens of it in all the
chief herbaria of Europe which were obtained from Crete
are not this Iris at all, but 7. Pseudacorus, our common
yellow water-flag. It may well be that it arose as a seedling
form of some variety of spuria or 7. ochroleuca. A hybrid
ochraurea, whose name sufficiently indicates its parentage,
is perhaps more free flowering than any of the above.

All the plants do well in heavy soil. If the soil is
naturally light and dry, it must be kept cool by plentiful
additions of old manure or decayed humus, and they all
respond to liberal supplies of moisture during the growing

A SIBERIAN PLANT 61

season. The sturdy, sword-shaped, upright leaves are a
welcome addition to any border, set off as they usually are
by a graceful twist in their growth and topped by the large
clean-coloured flowers.

Another large group of Irises that make good and showy
garden plants may be distinguished by the name of its best-
known member, /. sibirica. This is a European as well as
a Siberian plant, and in its best forms has hollow stems
3 feet or more in height, rising high above the narrow
leaves and bearing a lateral, as well as the terminal, head of
several flowers. The colour is usually blue, more or less
veined with white, though several almost white forms are
not uncommon. It is very easily raised from seed, and the
young plants, planted out early and well treated, should
flower a year later. The best forms can then be selected,
either for size, shape, or colour, or even floriferousness,
for individual plants certainly vary in their capacity for
throwing up a large number of flower spikes. The clumps
it is decided to keep should then be left alone, and if
the soil is rich and not too dry their beauty will increase
from year to year. The individual flowers are somewhat
small, but the effect of a number of plants of fine forms
of this Iris is very striking.

A fine Eastern relative of /. sibirica is I. orientalis,
which is indeed probably a distinct species, if we may rely
upon the characters of the seeds and the capsule and on the
general habit of the plant. The flowers are of nearly the
same shape of those of /. sibirica, but larger, fewer in
number, and not raised much above the foliage. The
spathes are usually brightly tinged with red, though this is
a somewhat variable feature. Of this Iris there are forms

62 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

with flowers of a milk-white colour, among the best of which
is that known in gardens as Snow Queen.

In recent years the exploration of Western China has
added many beautiful plants to our gardens, and it is to the
two well-known plant collectors, Wilson and Forrest, that we
are indebted for two yellow-flowered relatives of /. sibirica,
namely, /. Wilsonii, and /. Forrestii. The former has the habit
of the true /. sibirica, with numerous flowers on tall, hollow
stems, of two shades of pale yellow, lightly veined with
purple near the base of the segments. /. Forrestii is dwarfer
even than /. orientalis, but is of a clearer yellow colour, and
in some plants, at any rate, the falls are remarkably long
and ample. Enough time has not elapsed since their intro-
duction into our gardens to enable us to say whether these
species will afford colour variations. Another Chinese
novelty is /. chrysographes, with flowers of the richest, deep
red-purple, veined with gold. This is another of Wilson's
introductions, and it flowered for the first time in England
in 1911.

A less recent introduction from China, belonging to
the same group of hollow-stemmed plants, is /. Delavayi,
which needs more moisture than those previously men-
tioned if it is to flower well. The stems grow 4 feet
in height in rich soil, and the flowers are conspicu-
ously blotched, rather than veined, with white on a deep
purple ground. In the wild plant the flowers are some-
what small, but hybrids of it have already given forms
with far finer flowers, that will flower much more freely
in drier soil than that which /. Delavayi demands.

In America the group is represented by /. prismatica,
which has a slender, wide-running rhizome, a peculiarly

WATER-LOVING SPECIES 63

wiry stem, and small, blue flowers of the shape of /.
sibirica. It is not common in cultivation, but is a very
graceful little plant.

Lastly we must notice the Himalayan member of the
group, 7. Clarkei. It is distinguished by a solid stem and
by peculiar foliage. In habit it is not unlike /. orientalis,
while the flowers faintly resemble those of /. Delavayi.
In colour they vary considerably, and may be either blue
or purple of various shades.

The mention of Delavayi as a water-loving species leads
naturally to the consideration of others that do well in
moist positions. One of our two native Irises, 7. Pseuda-
corus, is well worthy of a place in any garden, and is more-
over very accommodating. It will grow and flower well,
although producing somewhat smaller flowers, even in dry
Surrey sand. Colour variations of this are numerous,
for some are pure yellow without the usual brown mark-
ings on the base of the blade, and there are also several
pale primrose forms, one of which is known as Bastardi.
This Iris is common in moist places all over Europe, and
extends even into North Africa and Syria. Attempts have
even been made to see in it the Fleur-de-lys of the French
kings, and to derive Jts adoption as an emblem, from the
fact that its yellow flowers indicated a ford over a diffi-
cult river to a king, who was hard pressed by the Saracens.
The account is ingenious but not necessarily authentic.

In America the place of this Iris is taken by a some-
what closely related species, 7. versicolor (syn. 7. mrginica).
In habit it is not unlike 7. Pseudacorus, nor is the shape of
the flowers very different. The colour, however, is totally
unlike, for it is always some shade of red- or blue-purple.

64 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

This, again, is a plant where selection of the best forms
is very necessary. The poorest are small in size and pale
in colour, but the best have large flowers of a good deep
blue-purple, or even of a velvety red-purple that borders
on crimson. This form is in commerce as /. versicolor
kermesiana, but it will appear among seedlings — if the
raiser has any luck at all. 7. versicolor is, of course, most
luxuriant in damp rich soil, but it will do very fairly well
with Pseudacorus in dry, hungry sand.

/. setosa was originally described as an Asiatic plant, but
forms that cannot be separated from it are found in
America, both in Alaska and on the east side from
Labrador to Maine. There it is known as /. Hookeri or
/. setosa canadensis or 7. tridentata. At least half-a-dozen
forms of it will come true from seed and be obviously
dissimilar when growing side by side, but at the same
time be practically indistinguishable as dry herbarium
specimens. The peculiarity of this Iris is that the stan-
dards have dwindled until they are only small points of
various shapes about half an inch long, and their disap-
pearance is, in most forms, counterbalanced by the in-
creased size of the falls. The colour is usually blue, but
some shades are so light and pale as to become almost grey.

The last of the water-loving Irises, as also one of the
latest to flower, is the well-known Japanese hybrid 7.
Kcempferi, so familiar an object in Japanese art. The
varieties known as 7. Kampferi are evidently the highly-
developed product of the hybridiser's art, but no ac-
count has ever yet been given of the steps by which they
have been obtained from the wild species. The latter
is a much more easily cultivated plant than the imported

SHOWY IRISES 65

Japanese hybrids, which seem to need moist, rich, or at any
rate heavy, soil, and a warm, sheltered position, to do well.
As mere colour, the Japanese hybrids are marvellous, but it
is always hard to see how the Japanese, with their feeling for
graceful lines, can ever have countenanced the doubling
and distortion which seems to have been one of the chief
aims of the hybridisers. The wild plant is much more
shapely, and has flowers of a rich velvety red-purple. More-
over (and this is curious in view of the diversity of the
Japanese results), its seedlings show — here in England, at
any rate — no variation.

Another name that has been much confused with /.
K&mpferi, namely, /. Icevigata, does stand for a definite
wild plant, which is the most magnificent of all really
blue Irises. It is found wild in proximity to /. Kcempferi,
but it is still very rare in cultivation. Garden forms of it
are perhaps slightly better known, for they have been in
cultivation in England for some years under the name of
albopurpurea, which was given to a form which has white
flowers of the same shape as the type, spotted with blue
or purple. This appeared by chance at Kew among a
Japanese importation, and some specimens of it may still
be seen there in the new water garden.

A trio of showy Irises from the Southern United States
deserves to be better known. It consists of /. hexagona, I.
Lamancei, and /. fulva. The first, it is true, will only
flower out-of-doors in a well-sheltered and warm corner,
by preference close against the wall of some heated glass-
house ; but it is a majestic plant, with large purple- blue
flowers on a tall, branching stem. /. Lamancei is becoming
much more common in cultivation, and is more easily

E

66 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

flowered. The only drawback is that the short stem is apt
to hide the flowers low down among the crowded foliage.
However, the individual flowers are remarkably pleasing,
and present a combination of purple-blue on the segments
and green on the style branches. The flowers are almost
identical with those of /. hexagona, although botanically the
structure is slightly different. Both produce their flowers
from the axils of the leaves, and this is also a characteristic
of /. fulva, which is unique in its terra-cotta colour and
curiously drooping outline. It is quite hardy, but not always
a free-flowering Iris. It rarely blooms before the end of
June, and Lamancei is usually in flower at the same time
with it. The result of a cross between the two is inter-
esting. /. fulva was the seed parent, and the tall, branching
habit of this plant is retained, but the hybrid has flowers of
the shape and substance of I. Lamancei, the pollen parent.
The colour of one form is a rich, velvety-red, indeed almost
crimson-purple, while others have retained more of the blue
colour of the pollen parent.

All the members of this group seem to prosper in a rather
rich soil, and respond to moisture in the growing season by
more vigorous development.

A little-known set of Irises comes from Syria, and
comprises /. Grant Duffii, I. Aschersonii, and /. masia.
An /. melanosticta has been introduced to commerce ;
but it is doubtful whether it is more than a colour variety
of /. Grant Duffii. This latter is an ill-natured Iris, and one
that is difficult to handle. In the first place, Sir Michael
Foster lavished all his arts upon it for five-and-twenty
years without once inducing it to flower, and the author
has had no better result with some of these identical plants.

OTHER APOGON IRISES 67

Moreover, it is spiteful even when gently handled, for the
rhizome is covered with long and very sharp spines, which
enter the flesh and then break off and make their presence
known in the most unmistakable way. The flowers are of
a greenish-yellow, and, as catalogues have it, it is a plant
" of botanical interest." I. Aschersonii is somewhat similar
in appearance ; but it flowers more easily and its spines are
less vicious. /. masia is a purple-flowered plant of the
same structure as the other two, but though the late Max
Leichtlin once had it in cultivation and sent it to Foster,
with whom it flowered, it is apparently not to be obtained
at present.

The remaining Apogon Irises hardly seem to fall into
any group. For instance, we have in England a very
peculiar Iris, namely /. fcetidissima ; its habit is peculiar to
itself, and so too are its orange-red seeds, which cling fast
through the winter to the open capsules. Its usual form
has dingy purple flowers of but little beauty, but there
is to be found a yellow-flowered variety which is some
improvement in this respect on the type. It is worth
growing in half-shady places for the decorative value of
the seed capsules in winter. Its leaves should be carefully
handled, for they requite rough treatment by emitting a
curious half-foetid odour.

The small Japanese species /. minuta seems to stand
by itself except for another species from China, not in
cultivation, which, as far as can be seen by herbarium
specimens, is closely allied to it. It produces about the
middle of April small yellow flowers tinged with brown,
and the plant is peculiar in that nodules form on its roots
as on those of leguminous plants. It is not yet certain

68 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

what the signification of these nodules may be, nor whether
a separate class must on the strength of them be made for
this species and its Chinese cousin.

There are in addition certain Central Asiatic and Chinese
species that are either not cultivated or very rare in culti-
vation, such as tenuifolia, Bungei, ventricosa, songarica,
Henryi, Rossii, &c. These can hardly yet be said to have
their place in our "present day" gardens, though it is
to be hoped that those who have the opportunity will
be kind enough to send home a few seeds with the
capsules. From these it would in most cases be possible
to identify the species and to raise seedlings, which would
introduce these Irises into general cultivation. Seeds
travel more easily and more successfully than rhizomes,
and the resulting plants usually establish themselves more
readily in their new quarters.

CHAPTER XI
IRISES FOR THE ROCK GARDEN

I. BULBOUS SPECIES

FEW rock gardens contain many Irises, and yet some of
the species are seen to the best advantage on its ledges,
which raise them to the level of the eye. In the winter
months especially, when many alpine treasures are either
dormant with their heads tucked beneath the surface or
reduced to mere withered tufts of dry leaves, what could

BULBOUS SPECIES 69

be more welcome than the large blue flowers of /. alata
with their golden central stripe ? It is unfortunately true
that our summers are not long enough nor hot enough
to ripen this Mediterranean bulb, but it is now so cheap
that it is worth a shilling or two expended in purchasing
annual supplies. The bulbs should be obtained as soon as
possible, in August or early September, and planted at once
in rich soil. Care must be taken not to break off the
fleshy roots, which have a way of "coming off in your
hand," and when this happens the bulbs are necessarily
weakened, for these roots contain supplies of nourishment
on which the bulb draws during the effort of flowering.
When all is well, the reward is a succession of flowers
from November till February.

Those who are fond of sweet-scented flowers, and those
who are interested in any plant that comes from Palestine,
should not fail to plant a few bulbs of /. Vartanii in some
sheltered, sunny corner. In this case, too, the bulbs must
be obtained early and planted at once. Old leaf-soil may
with advantage be added to lighten a heavy soil or to
enrich dry sand. Then almost immediately the leaves
begin to push up, and usually well before Christmas the
pale slaty-blue flowers appear. They are of the same
shape as the well-known /. reticulata, but the style crests
are longer, and somehow the effect is more fragile, and so
too, unfortunately, is the constitution of this bulb. With
care, however, and the aid of a sheet of glass to throw
off excessive rain in the early months of the year when
the foliage should be ripening off, the bulbs might be
induced to live on from year to year, and possibly to
accustom themselves to the altered conditions of our

70 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

climate. But then unfortunately they would probably lose
their early-flowering habit. The other quality that makes
this Iris so valuable is its delightful scent of almonds,
which any gleam of pale winter sun is enough to bring out.

Even if these two autumnal Irises are hard to keep and
almost demand annual renewal, this is not the case with
the other small bulbous plants that seem so well adapted for
the rock garden, /. reticulata, with its brilliant uniform of
intense violet and gold and faint scent of violets, is probably
the best known of the early spring-flowering species. It
has, however, several relatives that are no less beautiful and
quite as hardy. The smallest of all, I. Danfordice, found
nearly forty years ago by Mrs. Danford in little colonies on
the slopes of the Cilician Taurus, is bright yellow, some-
times faintly dotted with olive-green. This little mite seems
indeed not yet to be full grown, for its standards are merely
diminutive spines. A cousin that usually flowers at the
same time in February is I. Bakeriana* The falls here
seem to be cut out of violet velvet, so dark as almost to be
black. It is dappled with white at the throat, where the
blade of the fall meets the haft, and it distinguishes itself
from all other Irises by its eight-ribbed leaves.

Bulbous plants with blue flowers are rare, and even when
we have made up our minds to pay as much as three or four
shillings for a single bulb of that most brilliant of all blue
bulbs, Tecophilcea cyanocrocus, we cannot all succeed in
making it flower or increase. But any one who cares to
invest the same sum in a dozen bulbs of the form of /.
histrioides that is supplied by Mr. C. G. Van Tubergen, Jun.,
of Haarlem, will surely not regret the outlay. It is necessary
to specify the source from which these bulbs may be

A BEAUTIFUL IRIS 71

obtained, for there are many forms that masquerade under
the name of /. histrioides, but none is so good as this.
Early in February the fat buds should appear almost as
soon as the horny tips of the leaves pierce the soil. They
quickly open and show their splendours of light and dark
blue, splashed with white at the throat. /. Krelagei is another
Iris, which at its best has magnificent flowers of crimson
velvet, but there are Krelageis and Krelageis, and the poorest
have small flowers of a washy purple and are hardly worth
cultivating.

Almost before /. alata has sent up its last flower, some
small but brilliantly coloured relatives should be ready to
succeed it. It is hard indeed to describe the colour scheme
of /. persica. Even with the help of the most elaborate
colour charts we are entirely baffled. Imagine a pearly
white flower washed over with turquoise-blue and sea-green
laid on unevenly ; give it a blotch of warm purple-brown
on the blade of the falls and a central orange stripe, and you
will have some faint idea of the beauties of I. persica. It
was grown in England three hundred years ago, but either
its constitution is not strong or there is something in its
cultivation that we do not understand, for it seems to get
rarer instead of more common, and it is seldom that one
sees /. persica in the form of a vigorous colony. Wretched
specimens appear in tiny pots at shows from time to time,
but the flowers are then undersized and puny, and attract
but little attention.

Those who cannot succeed with persica itself should
try I. Heldreichii, which is sometimes called stenophylla,
though its leaves are scarcely narrower than those of
persica itself. Its large flowers are a combination of pale

72 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

grey-blue and indigo, the latter appearing in large con-
spicuous blotches. A good contrast, and perhaps a better
doer, is I. Tauri, with deep purple flowers gaily veined with
gold.

None of these bulbous Irises exceeds 8 inches in height,
and their leaves wither away completely by mid-summer,
so that some small annual can well be sown among
them to cover the ground in the later summer months.
The only disadvantage of this plan is that I. reticulata
and its kind cannot be lifted and replanted unless one
can make up one's mind to root up the annuals when
in full flower in July. This frequent lifting and replant-
ing of /. reticulata and its varieties is undoubtedly bene-
ficial, but at the same time the bulbs should not be kept
many weeks out of the ground, for they are apt to shrivel
and deteriorate. If they must be stored for any length
of time, they should be covered in dry sand, to keep
excess of air from the bulbs. This will prevent the
evaporation of" the moisture within them and tend to
keep them plump and sound.

CHAPTER XII
IRISES FOR THE ROCK GARDEN (continued)

II. RHIZOMATOUS SPECIES

THE previous chapter dealt with certain small bulbous Irises
that find a fitting home and shelter in the rock garden. So
long as the bulbous species are in flower, no rhizomatous

PLATE VI

I. XIPHIOIDES OR ANGLICA— A TYPICAL
GARDEN FORM

RHIZOMATOUS SPECIES 75

Iris throws up its blooms, except the Algerian /.
unguicularis or stylosa, and this will soon become too
big for its position unless the rock garden is on a large
scale. Once, however, the last flowers of /. reticulata and
I. persica of the year have faded, the first dwarf rhizomatous
Iris may be expected to unfold its earliest buds, usually
not long after the beginning of April. The actual date
will vary slightly with the season, and also with the amount
of shelter from cold winds that the surroundings afford.
In most seasons it is a race between the dwarf, narrow-
leaved Greek forms of /. stylosa (sometimes known as /.
cretensis) and the true type of /. pumila as to which shall
be the first to unfold its flowers, and the Greek plant
usually wins by a day or two. It is important to lay stress
on obtaining the real I. pumila, for this plant is still some-
what rare in cultivation. There is no difficulty in finding
the name in catalogues, but it is quite another matter to
find plants that fit the name, except, as a rule, those
varieties that are offered under the names of pumila
ccerulea and pumila azurea. These two names are not
quite synonymous, or perhaps it would be nearer the
truth to say there do exist two garden forms for which
these two names may be used. There is very little differ-
ence between them : in colour, in fact, there is none,
but one is superior to the other both in size and vigour,
and is moreover more floriferous. Of the better form
it is possible to have as many as thirty flowers on a
patch a foot square, and the colour is a rather grey
sky-blue.

These pumilas are, for their size, at any rate, some
of the most floriferous of Irises, and the whole plant with

76 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

the flower is not more than 6 inches high. As it flowers
so profusely on any dry, windy, and sunny slope, it is
obviously well suited to exposed ledges in the rock garden.
There are many colour varieties even in the wild state,
and forms may be obtained with purple, yellow, blue, and
even nearly white flowers. The yellow seems to predomi-
nate in the East and the purple in the West, and it is to
be hoped that some kind traveller to Greece, and especially
to Attica, where the plant is common on Mount Pentelicus
and on the surrounding hills, will bring or send home
a fresh supply of either rhizomes, seeds, or both, of the
Greek form of this Iris. Most rhizomatous Irises are
excellent travellers. They can be torn up when in full
flower, wrapped in a little dry moss and wool, and posted
home by sample post, for, of course, they are scientific
botanical specimens. They should not be elaborately
packed in damp moss, for this is apt to engender mildew
on the way. The close wrapping in some nearly dry
material is quite enough to prevent all the natural moisture
being evaporated out of the rhizomes, and also secures them
against crushing in the post.

Another little April flowering species for the rock
garden, /. minuta, comes from the Far East, and is still
rarely seen. It has small, bright yellow flowers and narrow,
grassy leaves. It is difficult to say with certainty to which
group it really belongs ; indeed, in some ways it stands
widely separated from all other species known in cultiva-
tion, though it has a Chinese relative that has not yet been
introduced. Here, again, one would like to invoke the help
of travellers in China. There are at least half-a-dozen
delightful little species, all well suited to the rock garden,

AMERICAN IRISES 77

which we only know as dried herbarium specimens. It
is doubtful whether living plants of some of these could
stand the long journey, unless they came by post through
Siberia, but seeds would soon give us a stock of plants,
probably more vigorous and better acclimatised than any
transplanted roots.

I. ruthenica is a very widely distributed plant in the
wild state, but it has suffered from neglect in our gardens,
owing to the fact that some of its varieties live on from year
to year without flowering. To what cause this is due
it is impossible to say, for other forms growing in similar
conditions a few feet away throw up many flowers, and
very pleasing they are, with their pink-edged spathes and
blue falls veined with white. It does not seem fastidious
as to the soil in which it grows, but it does object to being
moved, except while growth is active. The grassy leaves
are arranged in spreading, fan-shaped tufts, which soon
spread into great mats.

For half-shady spots, low down, when the soil is kept
cool and somewhat moist, two small American Irises,
/. cristata and I. lacustris, are eminently suited. The
latter is nothing but a dwarf, deep-coloured relative of
the former, but it has the additional merit of flowering in
September and October, as well as in the spring. They
both require well-rotted vegetable mould, to which the
addition of small, gravelly stones will prove beneficial by
helping to retain moisture. The delicate lavender or lilac-
coloured flowers are spreading in outline and set off by an
irregular, yellow-dappled crest, recalling the well-known /.
japonica, to which indeed these species are distantly related.

America also supplies us with a group of most beautiful

78 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

Irises from California, which, if they were better known,
would certainly be found in nearly every rock garden,
except, perhaps, in those where the whole of the soil is
highly charged with calcareous matter. For lime-haters
they undoubtedly are, though in light, sandy soil they thrive
amazingly, and most of them have, moreover, the excellent
quality of remaining more or less evergreen throughout the
winter. No one who has seen the crimson-veined, ochre-
yellow flower of /. bracteata or the brilliant silver and claret
of /. tenax will willingly be without them. /. Douglasiana,
too, of which no two plants seem to produce flowers of
identically the same shade of colour, is scarcely too vigorous
for a large sunny corner. Not one of these Irises seems to
appear at shows in good form, because few nurserymen
grow them. As a matter of fact, transplanted roots are
seldom a success, and the best plan is to beg seeds from
gardening friends, who, if they grow these Irises at all, will
probably have plenty to spare, for all seed freely. Those
who are eager to have their plants sooner in flower than the
two years that seedlings demand, may try their luck with
pieces taken off, while growth is active, and if the root
fibres are preserved undamaged and not allowed to dry up
and wither, their efforts may meet with success. Some
gardeners seem to have the knack of being able to transplant
anything at any time. It can only be done when the
gardener has a kind of intuitive knowledge of the habits of
the plant, and prefers to act by the light of nature rather
than to follow out blindly and unintelligently the letter of
the instructions given by the owner of some other garden
where conditions are slightly different.

Perhaps the most amazing of all rock-garden Irises is

ROCK-GARDEN IRISES 79

/. arenaria, which, as its name implies, likes sand, but not
pure sand without nourishment. The slender rhizome
creeps about just under the surface, and should spread in
all directions. Then in April many of the growths are
seen to be getting plump, and by May they burst out into
bright, clear yellow flowers with thick orange beards. It
is unfortunate that the plant seems almost to exhaust itself
by overflowering. It needs therefore to be given fresh soil
about every two years, or at least be top-dressed in spring.
The surface soil may be nearly pure sand, but an inch or
two down the roots should be able to find something more
nourishing, though still light and warm. The brilliance of
a good mass of this little gem among Irises is not easily for-
gotten. Seed may easily be obtained by artificial pollination
of the flowers, and it germinates fairly readily. Young
plants grow very fast, and soon cover quite a large space
with their wide-creeping rhizomes, and produce six or
eight flowering stems in their second season.

Near /. arenaria might well be grown such small Oncocy-
clus species as paradoxa, iberica, acutiloba, &c., and their
darker flowers will provide a foil for the brilliant yellow of
the former species. The sharp drainage of the rock garden
will also be in their favour.

So far there have been mentioned those small Irises
which seem to be very little known, but which only need to
be known to be installed in most rock gardens. We must
not, however, forget that even the most negligent of gar-
deners may obtain a fine display of colour among the
rocks in April and May, by planting largely the more
common small, bearded Irises, such as /. chamceiris, I.
olbiensis, I. bosniaca, and /. balkana, even if he does not

8o PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

care for the less garish beauties of the tiny /. rubromar-
ginata, with deep red edges to its leaves and curious,
lurid flowers.

Other Irises still rarer are kumaonensis and Hookeriana,
both from the Himalayas, where whole upland valleys seem
in some districts to be thick with them. The former
especially is very desirable, for a little clump no more than
four inches across may send up half-a-dozen flowering
shoots from which, while the leaves are still quite short,
burst out the curiously mottled red- or blue-purple flowers
with their thick beards of white silky hairs tipped with yellow
or orange. No one seems to know why it is that nearly all
Himalayan Irises have flowers mottled with two shades of
the same colour ; it is a very peculiar characteristic, and
found in /. Milesii and in /. goniocarpa as well as in the two
just-mentioned species. These latter both need moisture
from March to October and all the sun that they can get.

Our tale of dwarf rock-garden Irises is nearly ended,
but we have yet to introduce the most fairy-like of all, /.
gracilipes. This slender, beautiful little species comes from
open glades in cool woods in Japan. In dealing, however,
with Japanese plants we must always remember that the
Japanese sunlight seems to be of a different quality to our
own. Growth ripens in woods there that need almost full
sun here. Gracilipes, for instance, will here succeed well
in moist vegetable soil in any position where it is shaded
from the sun for about half the day, but does not like a
wholly shaded position. This does not mean that it must
be overhung, for dripping moisture would prove fatal to it,
but in an open space between small shrubs at the edge of
a peat bed it does well. There the rooting medium is cool

IRISES FOR THE BORDER 81

and slightly moist, and the shadows of the surrounding
shrubs will save the slender rhizome and stem of /. gracilipes
from succumbing to the parching drought. Similar con-
ditions may be obtained in the rock garden by planting this
Iris where the shadow of some rock will shield it from the
sun for part of the day. It does best in a position facing
west. Its thin, wiry stem bears two or three little branches,
each tipped with a delicate pinkish-lilac flower of the same
flat, spreading form as /. cristata and /. japonica. The tiny
crinkled crest is flecked with gold, and it is altogether a
most desirable Iris.

CHAPTER XIII
IRISES FOR THE HERBACEOUS BORDER

IT is always somewhat surprising to find that in the majority
of gardens comparatively little use is made of Irises in borders
of herbaceous plants. The reason seems to be that Irises
are looked upon as short-lived flowers, and therefore not
worth the space they occupy. But, while it is no doubt
true that the individual blooms do not last more than two
or three days, it 4s equally true that the flowers on each
stem open in succession, and thus extend the flowering
time to a period not much shorter than the space during
which other herbaceous plants are at their best. It may also
be remarked that the leaves of many Irises are more deco-
rative as mere foliage, and last, in good condition, longer
than the often unsightly remains of other herbaceous plants
when the flowering season is past.

The object of this chapter is, therefore, to make sugges-

F

82 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

tions as to the various sorts of Irises that seem especially
adapted for use in the herbaceous border.

In the first place, it is not easy to find many plants that
make a better permanent edging than some of the dwarf
early-flowering bearded Irises. For mere floriferousness,
the true /. pumila in its endless colour varieties can hardly
be surpassed. When in flower, the whole plant is not
more than 6 inches high, and the flowers ought to be so
closely packed as almost to obscure the leaves. It is usually
at its best by about the middle of April, and if there is any
drawback to the employment of this particular species as an
edging, it is that it loses its leaves almost entirely in late
autumn and winter. On the other hand, the extraordinary
range of colour to be found in the flowers is distinctly in
its favour. They may be white, pale blue, yellow, yellow
with a mahogany blotch, pale purple, or even a deep and
rich velvety black-purple.

It is difficult to give any reason for the undoubted fact
that to some people a far greater appeal is made by wild
species than by mere florists' varieties, however huge and
gorgeous the latter may be. There appears to be some
indefinable quality in the flowers of the wild types, and
possibly also in those of first crosses between them, that is
altogether lost in plants whose parents and ancestors have
been hybrids for two or three generations. Those who
have this feeling will prefer the true I. pumila to the
mongrels that are usually grown under this name, and which
appear in endless numbers in every catalogue. Almost
without exception they are forms or varieties of /. chamcziris,
which is easily distinguished from the real pumila by the
shorter tube, the shorter, broader, and less scarious spathes,

DWARF HYBRIDS 83

and by the fact that a stem is always present. This may
vary from i to 2 inches to nearly a foot in height, accord-
ing to the conditions under which the plants grow. In
the South of France, the smallest forms are found in open
positions on dry, limestone formation, while in half-shade,
or where the soil has collected in a hollow and formed a
richer bed, other forms occur which are two or three times
as large, but which differ in no other particular. In
cultivation under uniform conditions this difference dis-
appears, and we get a series of plants having stems of about
6 to 10 inches in length and bearing one or two flowers.
The leaves are usually slightly shorter than the stems at
flowering time, and the plants are very floriferous, besides
providing us with flowers of very different colours — blue-
purple, claret-purple, yellow, white, and various combina-
tions of these shades. Another peculiarity of /. chamceiris
— and one which need not surprise us when we contrast
the different conditions that prevail in winter in the South
of France and in Northern Italy with those that are ex-
perienced on the hills near the Danube — is that the leaves
remain more or less green throughout the winter. In fact
the plants may almost be called evergreen, and not un-
naturally, therefore, the wild plants when introduced into
our gardens do not prove to be quite so hardy as /. pumila.
However, so many varieties of these dwarf hybrids of
/. chamceiris are now obtainable that a visit to any good
nursery garden will almost certainly lead to the discovery
of plants of the colour desired. It is impossible to give
any list of names here, for each catalogue seems to have
a list of its own, and thus the only way to make certain
of getting what is required is to see the plants in flower

84 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

and to transplant them at once. This early disturbance, it
cannot be repeated too often, will do the plants no harm ;
in fact they should be all the better for it in the following
year, for these comparatively shallow-rooting and fast-
growing plants cannot be grown year after year in the
same spot without deteriorating, unless they are lifted from
time to time and given fresh soil.

A good effect may be produced in borders by planting
late flowering Darwin or Cottage tulips among clumps
of such forms of /. germanica as that which is known
in England as the type, Amas (macrantha), Kharput,
Oriflamme, atropurpurea, or florentina. Only the tallest
of the so-called Cottage tulips are suitable for use in this
way, but all the Darwins are of sufficient height to throw
up their flowers well among the Iris blooms. Not only
do these two plants do well together, but they may be
left untouched in any well-drained soil for two or three
years, after which the whole should be lifted, as soon in
the season as the tulip stems can be bent double without
their snapping. The Irises can then be replanted in clumps,
with possibly some dwarf-growing annual to hide the bare
patches between them until the autumn, when the tulips
can be replanted early in November.

Where such an arrangement is adopted, care must be
taken that rampant plants, such as perennial Sunflowers,
Delphiniums, and above all Michaelmas Daisies, do not
encroach upon the Irises, when the latter have become
mere clumps of foliage, and thus deprive them of that
place in the sun, and of the consequent ripening of the
rhizomes, which is essential if the plants are to flower
well in the following season.

A DECORATIVE IRIS 85

The broad glaucous foliage of /. pallida, especially
of the Dalmatian forms, is an ornament in any border
long after the flowers are over ; or, if a thick mass of fine
deep green leaves is wanted, a place near the front might
be found for 7. gmminea. The flowers are never con-
spicuous, hiding themselves among the leaves, but their
scent is delicious, although here again care must be
exercised in obtaining the plants, for some are scentless,
while in others of the same batch of seedlings the fragrance
is most marked.

Few Irises are more decorative or more worthy of a
place in any border than the best forms of 7. sibirica.
Once more, the form or variety is all-important, and,
once again, few catalogues can be relied upon. It is
perhaps only those who have raised 7. sibirica from seed
who can realise the endless variations that can be obtained.
The probability is that there are a certain set of factors
or unit characters that can be united in various combinations
according to Mendelian principles, but these factors have
not as yet been worked out for any Iris. At present,
all that can be said is that the Western forms of 7. sibirica
are much more decorative than the Eastern 7. orientalis,
which was described more than a century ago by Thunberg.
The latter is apt to hide its often magnificent flowers
among the foliage, but the best of the European forms
throw up a whole sheaf of slender stems, each surmounted
by about six flowers, opening in succession, and either
blue or white. 7. sibirica likes a soil that is rich in
humus, and prefers to be left undisturbed provided that
there is no lack of nourishment for its roots. This may
be provided by an annual winter mulch of leaf-mould

86 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

and manure, which will also tend to keep the surface
loose during the summer, and so prevent loss of moisture
by evaporation.

I. sibirica is at its best early in June, and after that date
few Irises can be recommended for the ordinary herbaceous
border except the various members of the spuria group.
The exceptions, of course, are the well-known Spanish
(xiphium) and English (xiphioides) Irises. Of these the
former will succeed better in dry and the latter in moist
soils. A flower of the spuria group is in many ways very
similar to a Spanish Iris. The segments of the flowers of
these two species are almost identical in outline, and both
exude the curious drops of sticky moisture on the outer
surface of the perianth tube. But whether this is or is not
the point at which the bulbous and the rhizomatous Irises
meet, the spuria group deserves to be represented in any
border. All the members have tall, stiff, sword-like leaves
of a dark green, topped by a sturdy stem, bearing two or
three close-set heads of flowers. The branches do not
spread, but rise alongside the main stem, so that the
flowers, as they open in succession, beginning at the top-
most, produce the effect of being set one below the other
on the same stem.

One of the best known of the group is ochroleuca,
white and yellow, while aurea has golden flowers with
wavy edges to the petals. Monnieri is a lemon-yellow
ochroleuca to all intents and purposes, and ochraurea is a
free-flowering hybrid of the two first-mentioned plants.
If either of the others fail to flower, ochraurea should be
given a trial, and in any case all need rich feeding in
autumn and winter, and a certain amount of moisture when

PLATE VII
I. OCHROLEUCA

CULTIVATION OF IRISES 89

growth is active in the summer. Blue-purple is provided
by the wild European spuria and also by some hybrids,
raised by Foster, between Monnieri and spuria, which are
in commerce under the names of Dorothy Foster, &c.

Many other Irises might be recommended for the
herbaceous border, as, for instance, the grassy-leaved
/. ruthenica, which, when its best form is doing well, literally
hides its foliage beneath its close-set flowers, or the dwarf
pale, grey-blue form of /. setosa, which probably comes
from Labrador. Both of these would make excellent
edgings, and should certainly be tried as soon as they
become somewhat more common in our gardens than
they are at present. The same temporary disability attaches
to /. bucharica, a Juno species well worthy of a prominent
place in any early April bulb border. If well treated, it
increases fast — so fast that the bulbs should be lifted and
separated at least every two years, or they will begin to
deteriorate from sheer lack of nourishment.

The plants mentioned in this chapter are not intended
to form an exhaustive list, but merely to act as suggestions
for a more extensive use of Irises in our borders.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CULTIVATION AND PROPAGATION
OF IRISES

RHIZOMATOUS Irises have suffered much from the very fact
that their hold on life is tenacious. Many of them will

90 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

continue to live in dark, shady corners, only to be blamed
because they cannot there ripen their rhizomes sufficiently
to produce flowers. Again, that most murderous of garden
institutions, the herbaceous border, in which, according to
its devotees, no gleam of the soil must be allowed to appear,
is fatal to many Irises. They cannot be expected to ripen
their growth if they are choked throughout the late summer
by "carpeting" plants, and then transplanted late in the
autumn, when the borders are renovated and tidied up
for the winter. If gardeners would only realise that much
trouble may be saved by shifting Irises when they have
only just finished flowering, or even when actually in
bloom, far fewer flowers and plants would be sacrificed.
The reason for this protest against autumnal transplanta-
tion is obvious to any one who has ever taken the trouble
to examine the root system of an Iris. The roots seem
to grow to their full length unbranched, and it is only when
the tips cease to grow down into the soil that the upper
parts begin to send out the fine rootlets on which the plant
depends for its nourishment. To ensure success, then, in
transplanting Irises, they should be shifted in time for the
main roots to grow down uninjured into the soil, where
they will then be anchored, long before winter arrives,
by the branching lateral rootlets. If the rhizomes are
disturbed at a late period, the roots obtain a very
slender hold, if any, on the ground, and alternations of
frost and thaw in winter may lift them out of the soil
altogether.

Another advantage of this early transplantation will
appeal even to those whose main object in gardening is
the production of colour schemes in their borders. It is

PROPAGATION OF IRISES 91

that mistakes in arrangement are far less likely to occur,
when the remains of the flowers can still be seen on the
plants, than when fallacious labels are the only guides
that remain.

The propagation of Irises is effected either by division
of the rootstock or by means of seeds. The process of
raising Irises from seed is far easier and more certain than
is usually supposed. All that is necessary is to sow the
seeds in pots early in the autumn and to plunge the pots
outside in some cool position. Germination should ensue
in the following spring, and in May, June, and July, the
young plants may be planted out in the positions where
they are to flower. Given good soil, fair weather, and
some attention in the matter of weeding and cultivation
of the surface between the plants, the majority should
flower in the following spring.

This does not apply to bulbous species, which should
be allowed to complete their growth for one or two years
in the seed pots. They take as much as four or five years
before they reach flowering size, but here again care and
good cultivation will reduce the period of waiting to three
years.

Hybrid seed is much more apt to be irregular in
germinating than the seeds that result from the self-
fertilisation of a species, and, when only a few seedlings
appear in a pot, it may be necessary to go through the
tedious process of sifting the soil to separate the remaining
seeds, which may be re-sown at once.

92 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

CHAPTER XV
IRISES THAT SELDOM FLOWER

IT may appear somewhat paradoxical to mention Irises
that seldom flower, but the following list may prove a
warning to some, and at the same time be of interest to
those who delight in the overcoming of difficulties and
in the cultivation of fastidious plants.

One of the most puzzling of these Irises is the /.
humilis, which is a relative of 7. spuria and /. graminea,
but which is sometimes confused with /. ruthenica. In
habit it is not unlike a small /. graminea, and the stiff, rigid
leaves seem always to be in the best of health, but year
after year the plant disappoints our hopes and remains
flowerless, and this even in the hottest and driest of
positions.

This year, for some unknown reason, one small plant
of this Iris sent up two flowering shoots, each producing
two flowers. As, however, the latter are practically iden-
tical with those of a dull-coloured example of 7. graminea,
and as they are produced so low down as actually to touch
the ground, the only interest that the plant offers is the
discovery of the exact requirements.

Another enigma is presented by the 7. ruthenica which
has just been mentioned. Some forms are very floriferous
and are delightful indeed, but on others flowers are very
rare, and on others, again, they are never seen at all. Aspect
and position seem to have no effect, and the only way to

DIFFICULT IRISES 93

obtain a satisfactory form of this Iris is to beg or buy a
plant when it happens to be encountered flowering pro-
perly. Besides ensuring the acquisition of a free flowering
variety, this plan has the additional merit of leading to
the transplantation of the plant at the season when success
is most probable, namely, when the plant is in full growth.

In gardens where the soil is a cold, wet clay, great
difficulty is often found in inducing /. unguicularis to
flower — an Iris popularly known by the incorrect name, /.
stylosa. The best hope of success would be the con-
struction of a raised bed against a wall facing south. It
need only consist of a small heap of light soil, containing
by preference plenty of old mortar rubble. This can be
supported and edged with a few large stones in such a
way as to assure good drainage. The plant does not need
rich soil. In it, indeed, its growth is phenomenal, and in
inverse proportion to the number of flowers produced.

Another difficult species is /. hexagona, from swampy
ground in the Southern United States. It needs warmth and
space, for its rhizomes run straight ahead for a considerable
distance. One of the few places where it flowers well in the
open is in a sheltered border between two of the glass-
houses in the Cambridge Botanic Garden.

A near neighbour of /. hexagona is the somewhat un-
common I. fulva, which is distinguished from all other
Irises by the terra-cotta colour of its flowers. Although
it comes from the swamps of the South-eastern States, and
although in a hotter climate than ours, as, for instance, on
the Mediterranean coast of France, it will flower well when
actually grown in water; with us it needs a hot and dry
position if it is to produce its extraordinary flowers in any

94 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

profusion. It well repays trouble, for its flowers come
late in June, when Iris blooms are beginning to get scarce,
and its graceful growth with the flowers set at intervals up
the stem in the axils of the leaves produces a particularly
pleasing plant.

Another Iris, and this a bulbous species, that under
ordinary garden conditions remains flowerless year after
year, is /. tingitana. This, as its name implies, is a North
African species, and really wants more heat than we can
give it here. However, in the case of this Iris, lack of heat
gives rise to a demand for a more liberal diet, and it seems
to be able to assimilate the plant food in any amount of old,
well-rotted manure that may be placed an inch or two below
the base of the bulbs, which are themselves surrounded with
sand. Even with this treatment the bulbs should either be
lifted annually and planted rather late, or else kept absolutely
dry under lights for some months. When /. tingitana
flowers well, it is a really glorious sight. Its flowers are
larger than those of any other kind of xiphium or Spanish
Iris, and the different shades of blue and purple in the
standards and the falls form a most delightful contrast.
Owing to the fact that the flowers appear late in April or
early in May, the bulbs should be planted in a sheltered,
sunny spot, where some protection from late frosts can be
afforded. In exposed positions a sudden snap of cold may
nip all the flowers in the bud, and frustrate all our hopes
for that year of seeing this noble Iris in bloom.

The complaint is sometimes made that " German "
Irises will not flower, and are not worth the space they
occupy. It will usually be found that this is caused by
one of three things. Either the position is such that no

SOME IRIS PROBLEMS 95

sun reaches the rhizomes, or the plants have deteriorated
through being left so long in one place that the soil in
contact with their roots is exhausted, or else some devotee
of " no-bare-earth-anywhere " gardening has carpeted the
rhizomes themselves as well as the soil between them with
mossy Saxifrage, Arenaria, or Acaena, with the result that
the sun is no longer able to reach and ripen the rhizomes,
which after all are the most essential and permanent part
of the plant. At first the Iris leaves may look well rising
from their green carpet, but in the following season the
flowers will most probably be looked for in vain. If those
three conditions are avoided, /. germanica and its allies
cannot be placed among shy-flowering Irises, provided
always that they are not grown in such heavy clay that
drainage is practically non-existent a few inches below the
surface. This last condition is most likely to be present
in town gardens, especially in London, where the subsoil
is less energetically and constantly worked than should be
the case under more ideal conditions in the country.
Rhizomatous Irises are healthier, on the whole, in a heavy
soil than in poor sand, but the drainage must be good, or
the rootlets will rot away, and the plants remain stationary
instead of growing.

CHAPTER XVI

SOME IRIS PROBLEMS

IN case this small book falls into the hands of any one of
an inquiring turn of mind, who cannot rest until he has

96 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

done his best to solve any enigmas that he meets, it may be
as well to mention some of the difficulties which remain
unsolved with regard to the Iris.

One very interesting problem lies in the determination
of the factors that produce the colour of the flower. Re-
search on Mendelian lines into the colours of flowers
has led to the discovery of the factors in such flowers as
Primula sinensis, but Irises seem to be peculiar in that the
colours of the flowers of an individual plant are apt to vary
from year to year, especially in the case of purples and
yellows. For instance, plants of /. cham&iris, bosniaca,
serbica, Talischii, which are picked out one year for the
clearness of their yellow colour, may in the following season
be entirely spoilt, from the garden point of view, by the
appearance of purple veins and streaks, which give the pure
yellow a muddy appearance. Stranger still, perhaps, are
the instances, rare, but not unknown, where one segment
of a flower is purple on one side, and yellow on the other,
of the centre line.

It seems as though there is underlying these changes
a delicate chemical question. For instance, a solution of
purple colouring matter from Iris flowers is changed by
addition of a solution of lime into bright yellow, and the
question of its origin and nature is probably very intricate.
It would, however, be a great gain to know what the
determining factors are, for then we might be able, by
making suitable additions to the soil in which the plants are
grown, to have at will purple or yellow flowered forms of
certain Irises, or, at any rate, eliminate from our gardens
those dingy yellow flowers, which sooner or later appear on
those plants which, in a former year, we have picked ou*

PLATE VIII
A DOUBLE JAPANESE FORM OF I. K^EMPFERI

CONDITIONS OF FLOWERING 99

from their fellows as being distinguished for the purity of
their colouring.

Another problem, of no less interest, is to determine the
conditions most likely to ensure the germination of seeds.
Generally speaking, the seed of a species, when fertilised
with its own pollen, germinates readily, but hybrid seeds
are apt to lie dormant for years. The longest time for
which an Iris seed has been known to lie dormant in the
ground before seeing fit to germinate is eighteen years.
This happened with one of Sir Michael Foster's hybrids
only a few months before his death, and instances of seeds
germinating after several years are by no means unknown
to any who have engaged in the fascinating pursuit of rais-
ing Irises from seed.

It would be useful, too, to know the conditions which
would induce more Irises to flower again in the autumn.
Is this character an idiosyncrasy of the individual plant, or
is the second flowering brought about by any external
circumstances ? The author once raised an /. pumila from
seed, which germinated early in spring, and flowered in the
month of October in the same year. It is well known that
these autumnal displays can be obtained, given a favourable
autumn, by timely sowings in the case of other perennials.
Delphiniums, for instance, sown in the open in spring, and
transplanted early, often make a brave show of spikes in
October. Irises, however, cannot be relied upon to flower
as soon as this, but is it possible by refusing, for instance,
to allow a plant to flower in the spring, or by special treat-
ment during the summer, to ensure an autumn display of
flowers ? It is a question worth some thought.

A query for those who seek to find adaptation in every-

ioo PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

thing, is the use and origin of the beard. The answer can
scarcely be found in the general view that it serves as a kind
of sign-post to direct intruding insects towards the nectar
in search of which they come. For why should most bulbous
Irises be either beardless or else so closely shorn that the
beard is only microscopic, while at the same time two or
three species adorn themselves with conspicuous beards ? Is
it mere chance, or can any design or purpose be detected ?
Why do many species find a beard necessary while as many
prosper without it ?

Moreover, there is the position of the crested species
to be considered. Is the crest an intermediate or an
extreme character ? Did the crest arise as a variation
of the beard or the beard from the crest, or did they
both arise independently from a parent possessing
neither ?

Another point, on which some light may perhaps be
thrown by comparing Irises with other genera of plants,
is this. About half the species may each be readily
distinguished by their seeds alone, while others belong
to groups, each having seeds of a certain type. Within
each of these groups the seeds cannot with certainty be
distinguished. On the supposition that all Irises have
developed in the course of ages from one ancestor,
which are the more ancient, the species whose seeds
are peculiar to themselves, or the members of groups whose
seeds are indistinguishable among themselves though readily
differentiated from those of all other groups? Or what
is the explanation of the phenomenon ?

These are some of the many interesting problems to
which the close study of any group of living organisms

THE ILLUSTRATIONS 101

cannot fail to give rise, and attempts at their solution must
needs add zest to the interest of the mere growing of
the plants.

CHAPTER XVII
THE ILLUSTRATIONS

IT is difficult in a series of so few as eight plates to give
much idea of the diversity of types to be found within
the Iris genus. In deciding what species or varieties should
be represented, two courses suggested themselves. It might
have been possible to select eight of the rarest species ;
but since the beginner will not want to start with these,
it seemed better to choose those Irises which, while being
themselves easily obtainable, were at the same time repre-
sentative of the different groups.

The bulbous species are represented by /. bucharica
(see Plate I.), which is undoubtedly the finest for garden
purposes of the Juno group (see page 17), and by one of
the so-called Dutch Irises (see Plate V.), which are a
great improvement in size and vigour on the old forms of
Spanish Irises. The third representative bulbous Iris is
also a member of the Xiphion group, and is included
because /. xiphioides or anglica (see Plate VI.) can be
grown with success by those whose soil is too damp and
retentive for such species as /. xiphium and /. bucharica
to do well except in specially well-drained and prepared
quarters.

102 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

Since various forms of bearded or Pogon Iris are so
commonly found in all gardens, it seemed unnecessary to
devote to them more than the single plate of /. Jacquiniana
(see Plate IV.), a richly-coloured representative of the
so-called German Irises.

/. Susiana (see Plate III.) was included as being the
least capricious and perhaps the least difficult to grow of
the Oncocyclus group. Its sombre colouring is to some
extent typical of the group, though it must be added that
7. Susiana is the most sombre member of the group, and
that there are some species, such as /. urmiensis, with its
pure yellow, and 7. Lortetii, with its soft pink and deep
crimson, that are really gorgeous in their colouring.

To the great beardless or Apogon section it would have
been easy to devote the whole of the eight plates without
reproducing any two Irises that were at all similar.

Of the three examples chosen, 7. longipetala (see Plate
II.) is perhaps the most easily established member of the
much neglected, but very beautiful, Californian Irises ;
7. ochroleuca (see Plate VII.) is the finest of the large group
of Irises akin to 7. spuria, and a clump either of 7. ochroleuca
or of its kindred 7. aurea and 7. Monnieri or of some of
Foster's Monspur hybrids is an ornament to any border.
The last of the three plates of beardless Irises, a Japanese
hybrid of 7. Kcempferi see Plate VIII.), shows the usual form
of these double flowers, which for some unaccountable
reason the Japanese seem to prefer to the more graceful
single-flowered forms. They are at home in sunny water-
gardens or in any rich, heavy soil where the subsoil is
moist in summer.

AN IRIS CALENDAR

103

CHAPTER XVIII
AN IRIS CALENDAR

THE following list is not intended to be absolutely ex-
haustive, and only includes those species that are easily
obtainable. The few exceptions, e.g. dichotoma and
chamceiris X trojana, are included in order to show that
some Irises may be had in flower even in August and
September, though neither of these plants is commonly
to be found in catalogues.

The dates for planting and transplantation are not the
only possible times, but the best times — the times, that is,
at which the plants, given ordinary conditions, most quickly
become established in the ground. In most cases Irises
may be planted at considerably later dates than those
mentioned, but there is then always the risk that an excep-
tionally hard winter will either cripple the plants or kiH
them outright, or at least prevent any display of flowers in
the following season.

Species in Flower.

Height,
Inches.

Planting Season.

January —

I. alata . .

6-9

October.

I. palaestina

4-6

»

I. unguicularis .

6-12

April or September.

I. Bakeriana .

4

August to October.

I. Histrio

6

>> »

104 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

Species in Flower.

Height,
Inches.

Planting Season.

February —

I. Bakeriana ....

4

August to October.

I. reticulata, var. Krelagei

6-8

»j j>

I. histroides . .

6

»> »

I. Danfordiae . * *

3

>» • »

I. unguicularis . _.-»

I

See under January.

I. palaestina . . .

1

March —

The February species.
I. tuberosa . -.'"•»

8-12

August to October.

I. reticulata .

6-10

n )i

I. persica, its varieties and

hybrids ....

6

» >,>

I. sindjarensis . . ''/*"

9-12

»t ii

April—

I. unguicularis . »'""'•

I. tuberosa . • '*.".
I. persica •» V .«

See previous months.

I. sindjarensis . •, •
I. bucharica ....

12-18

August to October.

I. orchioides and its varieties .

n

)» »>

I. warleyensis . . «

9-12

J5 '»

I. Willmottiana V ;> »

I?

M >>

•f

I. pumila ...

4-6

April to June.

I. chamaeiris ....

4-10

19 »l

I. minuta ....

4

»1 »

May —
I. germanica and varieties

12-18

May to September.

I. florentina

15-18

» i>

I. aphylla

6-12

>» >»

I. Tolmeiana .

12

» '»

AN IRIS CALENDAR

I05

Species in Flower.

Height,
Inches.

Planting Season.

May (continued} —

I. longipetala ....

I5-I8

May to September.

I. Tollong ....

I. xiphium praecox .

9-12

3 J 1 1

August to October.

6-12

Alay to September.

Oncocyclus Irises . ,

6-18

Oct. or early March.

Regelia Irises ... .

12-18

October (early).

Regelio-cyclus Irises ,

11

11 11

" Dutch " Irises

18

August to October.

June —

" German " Irises • •

18-30

June to September.

"Spanish" Irises . . .

12-24

August to October.

"English" Irises

12-18

11 11

I. graminea , . ...

6-12

June to September.

I. spuria and its varieties .

12-36

11 11

The Californian species .

6-1 8

March to August.

I. laevigata ....

12-15

June to September.

I. cristata ....

6

>* J)

June.

I. gracilipes ....

8-12

June to August.

I. lacustris T

4

June.

I. setosa .....

12-36

June to September.

I. versicolor ....

18-36

11 11

I. Pseudacorus . .

11

11 it

July-

I. Kaempferi ....

18-36

August or March.

I. aurea

24-36

July to September.

I. Monnieri ....

11

11 11

I. ochroleuca ....

English Irises ....

12-18

August to October.

I. Milesii

24-36

July to September.

August —

I. Kaempferi ....

18-36

August or March.

I. dichotoma ....

18-30

September.

io6 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

Species in Flower.

Height,
Inches.

Planting Season.

September —
I. dichotoma ....
I. chamaeiris x trojana .
I. lacustris . . .
I. Giildenstadtiana . . .

18-30
18-24

4
18-24

September.
June.

n

July or September.

October—
I. alata .
Pogoniris various (very irregu-
larly and more particularly
first crosses between species).

6-9

August.

November —
I. alata .
I. Vartanii ....
I. unguicularis ....

6-9
6

6-12

August.

»
April or September.

December —
Same as November.
I. Histrio . •

6

August to October.

INDEX OF SPECIES AND VARIETIES
OF IRIS

ABDUL Aziz, 45
acutiloba, 79
alata, 3, 17, 18, 69
Albert Victor, 39
Albertii, 46
albicans, 37
albopurpurea, 65
Amas, 36, 84
amoena group, 43
aphylla, 46
arenaria, 79
Aschersonii, 66
aurea, 69, 43

BAKERIANA, 12, 70
balkana, 79
biflora, 46
Biliottii, 47
Bismarckiana, 27
Black Prince, 43
bohemica, 46
Boissieri, 17
bosniaca, 79
bracteata, 54
bucharica, 21, 89
Bungei, 68

CARTHUSIAN, 47
Caterina, 47
Cengialtii, 39
chamaeiris, 46, 79, 82
chrysographes, 62

Clarkei, 63
Collettii, 7
cretensis, 75
cristata, 34, 77
cypriana, 47

DANFORDIJE, 12, 70
Delavayi, 62
Douglasiana, 54

ELIZABETH/E, 27
ensata, 52

FIEBERI, 46
filifolia, 1 6
fimbriata, 31
flavescens, 46
florentina, 37, 84
fcetidissima, 67
Forrestii, 62
Fosteriana, 22
fulva, 65, 93

GATESII, 23
germanica, 35, 36, 84
goniocarpa, 80
Gracchus, 3
gracilipes, 33, 80
graminea, 56, 85
Grant-Duffii, 66
Guldenstadtiana, 59

107

io8 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING

HARTWEGII, 55
Heldreichii, 19, 71
Henryi, 68
Her Majesty, 39
hexagona, 65, 93
Histrio, 10
histrioides, 10, 70
Hookeri, 64
Hookeriana, 70
humilis, 51, 56, 92
hungarica, 46

IBERICA, 23, 79
Innocenza, 40

JACQUINIANA, 45
japonica, 31
Jeanne d'Arc, 45
John Fraser, 40
juncea, 17
junonia, 47

K>£MPFERI, 64

Kashmiriana, 46
Kharput, 37, 84
King of Irises, 43
Kolpakowskiana, 12
Kochii, 37
Korolkowii, 28
Krelagei, u, 71
kumaonensis, 80

LACUSTRIS, 34, 77
laevigata, 65
Lamancei, 65
lazica, 50
Leichtlinii, 28
longipetala, 52, 53
Loppio, 39
Lortetii, 23
lupina, 27
lurida, 36

MACRANTHA, 36, 84
macrosiphon, 54
Madame Chereau, 45
Madonna, 37
Maori King, 43
Mariae, 27
masia, 66
melanosticta, 66
Milesii, 32, 80
minuta, 67, 76
Monnieri, 60, 86
Monspur, 89
Mrs. Allan Grey, 39
Mrs. Neubronner, 43

NEGLECTA group, 44

nepalensis, 7

nepalensis (germanica), 37

OCHRAUREA, 86

ochroleuca, 60, 86
olbiensis, 79
orchioides, 21
orientalis, 61, 85
Orinamme, 36, 84

FAUSTINA, l8
pallida, 36, 38, 85
parodoxa, 24, 79
persica, 6, 18, 71
plicata group, 45
Pogoniris, 6
prismatica, 62
Prosper Laugier, 45
Psuedacorus, 59, 63
Pseudevansia Irises, 6
pumila, 75 1 82
Purdyi, 51, 54
pursind, 20

QUEEN of May, 39

REGELIA Irises, 7, 28
reticulata, 6, u, 69, 72

INDEX OF SPECIES

109

reticulata, cultivation, 1 1

disease, n
Ricardii, 47
Rosenbachiana, 3, 21
Rossii, 68
rubromarginata, 80
ruthenica, 51, 77, 89, 92

SAMBUCINA, 36
setosa, 64, 89
sibirica, 6 1, 85
sindjarensis, 2O
sindpers, 20
sindpur, 20
Sisyrinchium, 12
Snow Queen, 62
songarica, 68
sophenensis, IO
speculatrix, 34
spuria, 48, 56, 86
squalens, 36, 44
stenophylla, 19, 71
stylosa, 49, 75> 93
subbarbata, 48
Susiana, 24

TAURI, 19, 72
tectorum, 31
alba, 32

tenax, 55
tenuifolia, 68
Thorbeck, 43
Thunderbolt, 16
tingitana, 1 6, 94
Tollong, 53
Tolmeiana, 52
Trautlieb, 39
tridentata, 64
trojana, 47
Tubergeniana, 17, 22

UNGUICULARIS, 49, 50, 75, 93

urmiensis, 24

VARIKGATA, 3, 36, 4O

Vartanii, 3, 10, 69
ventricosa, 68
versicolor, 59, 63
Victorine, 43
virginica, 63

WARLKYKNSIS, 21
Willmottiana, 21
Wilsonii, 62
Winkleri, 12

XIPHIOIDKS, l6

xiphium, I, 6, 15

GENERAL INDEX

APOGON Irises, 6, 48
Autumn flowering, 99
Autumnal planting, bad effects of, 90

BEARD, use of, in Irises, 100
Book of the Iris, The, 4
Bulbous Irises, 9

CALIFORNIAN species, 53, 78
Charles de 1'Escluse, I
Clusius, Carolus, I
Cold storage in winter, 27
Colour changes in Irises, 96
Crested Irises, 100

DISEASE in I. reticulata, u

ENGLISH and Spanish Irises, points of

difference in, 2
English Irises, 16
Evansia Irises, 6, 30

FLEUR-DE-LYS, the, 63

Flowers of Iris, structure of the, 8

France, culture of /. Susiana in, 24

GENUS, the divisions of the, 5
German Irises, 34, 95
Germination of seeds, 99

HANDBOOK of the Irideas, 4

ILLUSTRATIONS, the, 101
Irises that seldom flower, 92

JUNO Irises, 6

LITERATURE of the Iris, the, 4

MOR^EA and Iris, separating character,
8

NEGLECTA group, 44

ONCOCYCLUS Irises, 7, 23, 27
Hybrids, 28, 29

PACKING collected Irises, 76
Planting, the best time for, 90
Plicata group, the, 45
Pollination, 9
Problems, Iris, 98
Propagation of Irises, 90
Pseudevansia Irises, 6

REGELIA Irises, 7, 28

Reticulata Irises, cultivation of, 1 1

Rock garden, Irises for the, 68

SEASONS, Irises in bloom through the

four, 2, 3

Seeds, germination of, 99
Seeds, variety in, 100
Seedlings, raising of, 91
Structure of Iris flowers, 8
Spring or early-summer planting, good

effects of, 90
Spanish Irises, 16

TRANSPLANTATION, 90

WATER garden, Irises for the, 60, 63, 64

PrinUd by BALLANTVNE, HANSON &* Co.
Edinburgh &•> London

14 DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE LIBRARY
This book is due on the last date stamped below, or

on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

MAR 3 1 1960

.,. rflaiU®i»

g.wsKtfta

,

rtts

PERIOD

DEC 8 3

LD 21-100W-6 '56 General Library
(B9311slO)476 University of California
Berkeley

U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES