CHAPTER IX 



FIRST WEEK IN MARCH 



SPECIALISING in a hobby of any kind greatly in- 

 creases its interest, and in the culture of flowers it is 

 desirable to devote oneself more especially to one or 

 two groups of plants, though not to the exclusion of all 

 others ; for a garden devoted to one kind of flower only 

 lacks interest during a great part of the year. Irids of 

 all kinds include not only irises, but gladioli, moroeas, 

 ixias, tigridias, maricas, the Kaffir lily (schysostylis), with 

 many another lovely blossom from South Africa, where the 

 veldt is gay with innumerable flowers at this time of year. 

 Irids, therefore, of all kinds, are amongst our favourite 

 flowers, and it is seldom that the garden is without some 

 rare specimen of this class. 



Knowing this hobby of ours, a lady friend kindly gave us 

 a potful of small seedlings in 1900, which she described as 

 "a beautiful iris brought from Ceylon." Now, Ceylon is not 

 i famed for any special iris, and these seedlings were rather a 

 puzzle until we could settle their identity. For four years 

 they were grown out in the vinery before the first blossoms 

 appeared, and when this took place they made a sensation, 

 for it was evident that this exquisitely beautiful flower was 

 not exactly an iris, but what was it ? 



Recourse was had to the authorities of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society, to the late Sir Michael Foster (the great 

 specialist in irids), and to Kew, and all these authorities 

 concurred in pronouncing the newcomer to be a greatly 

 improved form of Moroea iridiodes, a plant indigenous to 

 South Africa, which had never been credited to Ceylon. 



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