206 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
A proof of the brilliant scornfulness inherent in the 
Japanese Iris may be found in the undeniable fact that 
it will never tolerate being mixed with other plants. 
The Japanese Iris has no place in the garden, no place in 
the companionship of the bog. It must have a tract to 
itself, and be planted, not in isolated clumps, but in 
tracts and masses. ‘Then, perhaps, you may arrange 
Trollius among it for early summer, and Gentiana 
asclepiadea to come on in August and September; but 
it is always fatal and ridiculous to plant the Japanese 
Iris in individual crowns among commoner neighbours. 
The Japanese themselves fully recognise this, and in all 
gardens, public or private, Iris Kaempferi has a broad 
bed to itself away from other things. There is one ex- 
ception, of course, to this rule, and that is that a lonely 
clump of the Iris is allowed to look superb, to strike the 
keynote of the whole composition, when set by itself, in 
a commanding position, on the edge of some lake, at the 
bend of some stream. But even here the rule holds good, 
and the effect depends on the complete isolation of the 
Iris. Any companionship of weaker lines will ruin the 
whole scheme at once. No plant in the garden has quite 
the same mixture of stiffness and grace; the sheaf of 
slender stems, all of arrowy straightness, scarcely diverg- 
ing as they rise from their common base, give a clean, 
fierce strength of line to a clump of Iris Kacmpferi such 
as you will see nowhere else. A good crown of Bambusa 
nigra, indeed, has the same grace, and more divergence, 
though it doubles the grace at the expense of the stiff- 
ness, and so loses the tart elegance, at once crisp and 
archaic, that delights one in the decorative force of the 
Iris. Of course, planted in masses and rows like potatoes, 
one loses this effect. But then one barters it willingly, 
perhaps, for the blaze of colour that results from such an 
arrangement. ‘This is how you see Jris Kaempferi in the 
