i66 THE BOOK OF THE IRIS 



distinct. In the Cambridge Botanic Garden it rarely 

 fails of opening on the 1st or 2nd of January, and it is 

 perhaps the only one among all its relations that has 

 never died out. The bulb is smaller than that of the type. 

 The spathe-valves are narrow, pointed, nearly colourless 

 and transparent, not green as in /. reticulata. The margin 

 of the blade of the fall is of bright blue-lilac, within it is 

 white, but spotted, blotched, and veined with the same 

 colour, in a manner which suggests the use of a brush. 

 In the median line is a low narrow yellow ridge which 

 is continued along the claw as a yellow streak, dotted 

 with black tubercles. The standards and styles are of 

 lighter blue, the crests being marked with deeper veins. 

 These are lanceolate-deltoid, not quadrate as in the 

 type. The flowering season is from January to March, 

 according to situation and season. Is not fragrant. 

 Native of Palestine. 



I have found this a very easily grown plant, on narrow 

 border, at foot of south wall. 



upB. I. reticulata var. Krelagei, Regel, Gartenfl., 

 1873, p. 354 ; Sweet, Brit. Fl. Card., ser. ii. t. 189 ; Lodd. 

 Sot. Cab., t. 189. This variety should be regarded as 

 really the type, though names cannot now be altered. 

 Sir Michael Foster points out that in the native country 

 of the two the south-eastern regions of the Caucasus 

 it is much the commoner and the more variable, while 

 seedlings raised from I. reticulata have all the characters 

 of the variety Krelagei. It is of red-purple colour, 

 varying from dingy plum to deep, almost black, purple, 

 not nearly so ornamental as the type, and rarely 

 fragrant. It is shorter and broader in all its parts ; the 

 blade of fall is marked off from claw by a slight con- 

 striction. The veins on the claw of fall are very 

 distinct, and separate up to the margin. Different 

 plants vary in size, the length of tube, relative breadth 

 and exact shape of the blade of fall, and in the shape of 



