My Garden in Spring 



some so much that the falls appear to have a white centre 

 edged with a bluish lilac band. The texture of the 

 flowers is rather firmer and crisper than in the larger 

 varieties, and I find they last quite two or three days 

 longer, either when picked or when left in the open. 

 These endearing qualities make them well worth growing. 



I grow one other form, but I do not care much for 

 it. I got it first from Herr Sprenger of Naples as Iris 

 unguicularis, var. pontica, and lately from Holland as 

 /. lazica. It has wide leaves, which somewhat resemble 

 those of Iris foetidissima, and the flowers are of a rather 

 starry, poor form, and a washy, pinkish lilac, the falls 

 being mottled with a yellow brown much too freely to 

 look clean and fresh. It has some rather interesting 

 botanical characters, such as a trigonous pedicel and 

 markedly keeled spathe, but though I should be sorry to 

 lose the variety I do not want any more plants of it. 



The growth of the pollen tube and its passage down 

 the style must be as remarkable and rapid in these Irises 

 as in any known flower. If you examine the distance it 

 has to go from the stigma down to the ovary and consider 

 the very short duration of the blossom you will readily 

 see what I mean. It is quite worth while dissecting a 

 full-blown blossom and extracting the slender style from 

 out of the perianth tube to get an idea of the delicacy and 

 wonder of its mechanism. As great length of style is such 

 a marked character of this Iris it is a pity that Desfon- 

 taine's name slylosa cannot be maintained for it, but as 

 Poiret's Voyage en Barbarie, in which the first description 

 of it occurs, was published in 1789, his name of unguicularis 

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