IN MY LADY'S GARDEN 



and so is Iris flavescens (with tall spikes of pale yellow 

 blossoms), which quickly follows I. florentina in opening its 

 flowers, both blooming at the end of May. 



A very large number of hybrids of the flag irises have been 

 introduced of late years by our horticulturists, some of which 

 are of great merit, whilst others are scarcely improvements 

 on the typical plant. Arnols, a fine flag iris of the Squalens 

 group, is extremely handsome, with standards (or upper 

 petals) in crimson-bronze, and falls in purple and gold ; 

 Bridesmaid, in delicate blue and white ; Mrs. G. Darwin, a 

 fine white flower, reticulated on the standards with violet 

 and apricot ; Queen of May, in a delicate shade of pink ; 

 Maori King, with crimson falls and golden standards ; and 

 Ada, in bright canary- yellow, with white falls reticulated in 

 crimson-brown, are all first-rate hybrids of I. barbata, which 

 are equally easy to grow with the ordinary German flag ; 

 and many another fine variety can be selected from a good 

 catalogue of these plants. 



One of the loveliest of the rarer irises is I. tectorum, 

 the flower which grows in such abundance on the roofs 

 of the houses in China and Japan. An interesting note 

 on this iris was sent from Japan in 1899 by Mr. Peter 

 Barr, in which he says that the reason of this flower garden 

 on the thatched roofs of the cottages in the country districts 

 is rather an economic than an aesthetic one. All thatched 

 roofs need a ridge of some kind to throw off the water, and 

 as the Japanese generally cast about to find something in 

 Nature which will answer their purpose, they found that this 

 close-growing iris renders their thatch a good, compact, 

 water-resisting protection. They therefore plant the roof 

 with these flowers, sometimes mixed with Lilium Thun- 

 bergium and hemerocallis, too. 



There is a story told of a woman who went to a Shinto 

 priest to inquire how she could give a blue tint to her 

 black hair. She was told to obtain the colour from a flower 

 which grew neither in heaven nor on earth, and trying the 

 iris flower from her cottage roof, she obtained^her object. In 

 April and May the roofs of the Japanese cottages are massed 



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