It is also made into snares for deer and bears; and a good 
idea may be formed of its strength, when a snare, not 
thicker than a 16-thread line, is sufficient to strangle 
Cervus Alces, the Great Stag of California, one of the most 
powerful animals of its tribe. The cordage is also manu- 
factured into bags and other articles.” 
From the foregoing account, and from what we have 
seen of the plant, we incline to think it might be profitably 
. cultivated in waste land in this country for hemp. It is quite 
hardy, grows readily, and might soon be increased con- 
siderably ; being a perennial, it would be cultivated at little 
expense, and there is no doubt that it would be far more 
advantageous to a British agriculturist than the celebrated 
New Zealand flax, of the success of which in this climate 
there is now, we presume, no probability. 
A plant forming close tufts of rigid, erect, linear-ensi- 
form, evergreen, tough leaves, which in wild specimens are 
rather shorter than the flowers. Stem erect, a foot or 
rather more high, angular, leafy, clothed at the base with 
remains of the leaves, as in Allium Victorialis. Ovarium on 
a long stalk, not enclosed within the floral leaves, some- 
what 3-cornered. Flowers about the size of Iris virginica, 
sessile on the ovarium, dark purple, veiny; the outer petals 
obovate, acuminate, spreading, beardless; the inner ob- 
ovate, rounded, erect, shorter than the others. Stigmas 
2-lobed, short. 
This species is most nearly related to the Iris humilis 
of Bieberstein, from which, ruthenica, biglumis, and all the 
neighbouring species, it is distinguished by the proportion 
borne to the outer petals by the stigmas, by the short 
tube of the corolla, and by the long stalk upon which the 
` ovarium is elevated far above the floral leaves. 
Our drawing was made in the Garden of the Horticul- 
tural Society in November last. [t is not, however, to be 
doubted, that its true season of blossoming is the spring: 
the Garden specimens were in all respects like the wild 
ones, except that the leaves were longer than the flowering 
stem, — a circumstance probably caused by the unnatural 
period at which the plants came into flower. 
J. L. 
