204 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
Irises, my heartiest thanks and sympathy to you!); and 
one is strongly tempted by Charon, Aspasia, Iphigeneia. 
And yet, and yet, from what I have so far seen of these 
trumpeted beauties at Horticultural Shows, they might 
more suitably be called after Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Brown, 
and Mrs. Robinson. Truth to tell, they have, so far as 
I have seen, large and rather undistinguished flowers, 
coloured in those dim, indeterminate, and muddy tones 
which pass muster for artistic to so many aspiring tastes. 
For these, as for the many hideous intermediate pinks 
and magentas of the newer Oriental Poppies, let all 
who ignorantly crave after fashion grow ecstatic; true 
gardeners will always know without telling that a flower’s 
one claim to beauty and adoration rests in its unstained 
clarity of simple or combined colour. Nor does this 
definition exclude the subtlety that is such a charm in 
Tris Korolkowi, Dianthus neglectus, Anemone robinsoniana ; 
nor, on the other hand, must subtlety ever be confounded 
with mere muddiness of tone and lack of any definite 
colour at all. 
Who is there in England that grows Jris setosa and 
Iris laevigata? And yet of these two ignored parents 
has been born the Iris of all Irises, the Iris of Japan. 
Iris Kaempferi takes the stage with a brazen flourish of 
trumpets; there is nothing like it in the garden for 
arrogance, for subtlety, for obviousness, for sheer insolent 
violence of beauty. No taste, not the most crude and 
immature, not the most delicate and over-refined, can 
refuse its homage, its instinctive, gasping homage, to the 
first glimpse of that royal Japanese Iris. Its appeal is 
almost scornful in its innocence of all appeal; you have 
to worship the thing, whether you will or no, and the 
plant condescends to no wiles to conciliate your feelings. 
And the heartless splendour of Kaempferi has its reward. 
One adores it as something supreme, one loves it reluc- 
