i 4 THE BOOK OF THE IRIS 



and surprise you with an apparition for which you were 

 unprepared. It is this latter circumstance which makes 

 it so much worth while to do a great deal in their 

 behalf. The reward for success is not measured out on 

 their part in any half-hearted or stinted degree, but is 

 satisfying and large. I confess when I first made the 

 acquaintance of Oncocyclus Irises a very long time ago I 

 thought that by comparison with them I never had seen 

 anything beautiful at all certainly not in the way of 

 flowers ; and though an egret's wing or the hollow of a 

 shell would stand for a good deal, yet the freshness of 

 the Iris blossom, the quaintness of its shape, the con- 

 trasts it presents, the very refined markings which are 

 so peculiarly its own, for the most part its subdued and 

 delicate colours are sufficient to make it distance every- 

 thing else that I have ever known, and in a figurative 

 way I could almost fall down and worship it. I 

 remember a good many years ago when I was out for 

 a ramble on the Continent with my wife in the month of 

 May that we arrived one evening rather late at the Mecca 

 of gardeners I mean of course Baden-Baden and I 

 only had time to pay my respects to the Magician who 

 lives there and to ask leave of him that we might visit 

 the "Jardin Botanique" on the following day; this 

 was at once readily given, and I soon after retired to rest 

 with a fine prospect before me. Very early on a trans- 

 parently clear and most delightful May morning I got 

 up and passed through the well-known little gate into 

 the enclosure which contains more exceptional and 

 highly interesting floral treasures than any other garden 

 in Europe. I knew not what there was to be seen, but 

 from former experience I was sure I should find a great 

 deal ; and so it was, only former experience was com- 

 pletely distanced at once. For the first time in my life 

 I came across a very fine specimen of Iris Lorteti at the 

 zenith of its beauty with its pale grey lilac falls, its 



