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 

 Cerviis Alces, the Great Stag of California, one of the most 

 powerlul 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 th.e 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. It is not, however, to be 

 doubted, that its true season of blossoming is the spring : 

 the Garden sj)ecimens 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. 



