HYACINTH OR IRIS? 61 



stomach (!) have come down to us to convince us 

 that they knew the iris ; also that they, such of 

 them as survived, were stouter men inside than 

 their decadent descendants. 



Of late years iris, dethroned from an honourable 

 place in medicine, has come much into fashion 

 as a garden flower. Not without reason, many 

 sorts are easy for the amateur to cultivate, and 

 all are very effective. The variety among them is 

 enormous ; not only are there in the hands of 

 growers many comparatively new discoveries from 

 North Africa, Central Asia, Asia Minor, and South 

 Europe, but the improving and altering of all 

 the families, new and old, has made the varie- 

 ties wonderful both in number and beauty now. 

 Large quantities of iris are grown in Holland, 

 some of the rarer sorts and still more of the cheap 

 and well-known kinds. In June one may see fields 

 of Spanish Iris (Iris xiphion], exquisite, delicately- 

 tinted flowers, quivering at the top of their grey- 

 green stalks. Blooming, as they do, when most 

 of the other bulb flowers are over, and when, in 

 the early days of the industry, most of the fields 

 must have been rather bare, they have a separate 

 and special attraction. They are very nearly hardy 

 bulbs, and withstand the winter's cold with little 



