IONACTIS. 
these have the merit of the easiest possible temper, and may be divided 
at pleasure in autumn or raised from seed. And the last comment that 
the dwarfer members of the family afford is that they give a brilliant 
warning to the cultivator never to be daunted by a plant’s habitat. 
For round the torrid coasts of Egypt and all the Levant there lives in 
the very sea-rocks themselves a dwarf and fleshy-leaved Inula with 
golden flowers, of which well indeed might the cultivator despair, and 
this book tell no tales ; yet Inula crithmoeides is quite as happy play- 
ing at samphire on half the headlands of England and Ireland as ever 
in the more classic rocks that look out over the waters of the Mediter- 
ranean and the bird-haunted hot lagoons of Egypt. 
Ionactis, See under Aster. 
Ipomoea stans.—For a hot deep and sandy corner in a hot 
garden this beautiful weak-stemmed hairy-leaved Convolvulus may 
be of value, with its 10-inch stem, erect or flopping, and its large cups of 
pure blue with a sheen of violet, through the latersummer. In winter, 
however, its roots might well be taken up and stored like those of a 
Dahlia. 
Iris.—None has a right to lay his word at the foot of this august 
race unless he is prepared to say nothing about any lesser matter. 
Rock-gardeners will find all they need to know of Iris in the exhaus- 
tive and final works of Mr. Dykes—the little one-and-ninepenny 
book is recommended to the rich : for only the really poor will be able 
to afford the six-guinea tome. Here, accordingly, there is no need 
for us to linger paddling in the fringes of the vast ocean that is Iris ; 
enough to realise that for sheltered banks, and more especially under 
the glass that shelters the choice Gentian bed, we shall be very happy 
in spring with the violet jewellery of JI. reticulata (good and kind 
enough, indeed, to gratify open ground and border); the blue-and- 
gold beauty of I. Vartani ; tiny yellow I. Danfordiae ; violet-velvet 
little I. Bakeriana ; the splashed sapphire-and-turquoise of the Van 
Tubergen I. histrioeides (do not be deluded into accepting substitutes) ; 
and the crimson-velvet of the best I. Krelagei (the poorer ones are 
cotton-backed, and the aniline colour has run at that); and then the 
unimaginable flowers of I. persica, pearly pallors splashed with king- 
fisher-wing blue and the green of young grass, with a blotch of purple 
brown and a central streak of gold. Pale-grey and indigo is its close 
cousin or child, J. Heldreichit (I. stenophylla); and in deep contrast 
stands its twin, J. Tauri, with imperial purples threaded by fine gold. 
These all are bulbous Irids, and in many cases had best be treated as 
annuals in England, or else taken yearly up and stored as Tulips are, 
planting them again soon, however, that they may get betimes to their 
436 
