210 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
like bad blotting-paper than Jris susiana—which, to be 
truly complimentary, really recalls a piece of grey 
Japanese silk-crape. Now there are many who adore 
these mottled horrors, for mottled horrors I will intoler- 
antly continue to call them (‘and I wish they was in 
Jonadge’s belly, I do’). For such let them abound; I 
merely offer my warning to those who love, as I do, clear, 
clean shades of colour. As to the double and semi- 
double forms I dare not speak so drastically. I have 
seen some hideous ones, tight, bunchy, voluminous, devoid 
of elegance or beauty of line; I have also seen some very 
stately ones, like huge blooms of Clematis. On the whole, 
I would eschew double varieties entirely, and keep an 
open mind about good, graceful semi-doubles. For the 
benefit of those who see ris Kaempferi in Japan I would 
here note that the exquisite crimson-veined white and 
pink ones that one sees and pounces on out there are not 
genuine varieties, but dyed, for the time, by insertion 
into some acid. So that the lot of those who purchase 
plants of these delusive lovelinesses is hard indeed, and 
pitiful. 
Iris Sibirica introduces us to a very valuable group of 
Irises which are genuine water-side plants, and quite 
invaluable for the edge of stream or bog. ‘They are all 
of the easiest possible culture, the utmost good-nature 
and the most imperturbable permanence, needing no 
attention at all from year to year, and quite capable of 
being naturalised in some choice corner beside water. A 
very strong family likeness marks them all, and szbirica 
is their type—a slender tuft of dense, straight, slim 
stems, carrying along their course half a dozen beautiful 
and beautifully-shaped blossoms of pale blue, veined and 
marbled all over with a deeper shade. Major, orientalis, 
longiscapa, sanguinea are all varieties, of which the best 
is major, having larger flowers than any. Then there is 
