i64 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



YELLOW IRIS (Iris Pseudacorus) 



Whatever difficulties of classification may yet be before 

 us, we shall, we think, be on entirely safe ground in 

 commencing our new chapter with the Yellow Iris, the 

 plant we figure in our twenty-fifth illustration, since, as 

 a water-plant, it has never shown any desire to roam, 

 bryony-wise, over the hedges, nor has it ever; been known 

 to leave its aqueous home to compete on their own 

 ground with such forest giants as the massive oak or 

 the wide-spreading beech. 



This yellow iris is one of our most graceful water- 

 plants, even in such goodly company as the peerless water- 

 lily, the ever-welcome forget-me-not, the golden-flowered 

 loosestrife, the stately flowering rush, the quaint buckbean, 

 and many another charming water or waterside plant that 

 springs to our thoughts as we wander in imagination by 

 some placid stream, and recall something of the wealth of 

 floral beauty that rises from its waters or fringes its banks. 



Our plant is called iris because, though always found 

 bearing the golden yellow flower that our illustration 

 shows, it belongs to a genus having blossoms of the richest 

 variety of colours. Iris is the Greek word for the rainbow, 

 and in all the centuries since the days of Theophrastus, who 

 bestowed the name on this family of plants somewhere about 

 three hundred and fifty years before the birth of Christ, 

 these beautiful flowers, so full of rich variety of colour, 

 have borne this expressive name. Its specific name is 

 pseudacorus, from the Greek word for false, and acorus, the 

 sweet flag or sedge. This sweet sedge in turn is the Acorus 

 Calamus ; so that we arrive at this point, that the yellow 



