Early Irises 



bulbous-rooted ones known as the reticulata section, from 

 the curiously beautiful coat that covers their corms. This 

 tunic is well worth examining with a good lens. To the 

 naked eye it looks as if composed of parallel strands of 

 a towlike substance, but if pulled away from the corm 

 the strands stretch away from each other, and show 

 lesser strands branching out from them and uniting the 

 stronger ones, so that then it becomes a veritable net- 

 work. So many local forms and varieties exist in this 

 section that their systematic arrangement is not easy, and 

 certain of them get chivied about as varieties of first 

 one species, then of another, according to various 

 authors' views, and this is the case with an old favourite 

 of mine. I used to call it Iris reticulata, var. sophenensis, 

 but Mr. Dykes, in his sumptuous new monograph of the 

 genus, points out that it resembles /. histrioides in its 

 manner of increase, viz. by a host of tiny cormlets 

 surrounding the base of the parent corm, and in its stout 

 leaves and hasty way of bursting into flower soon after 

 the leaves and spathes have pierced through the ground, 

 so as /. histrioides, var. sophenensis, it must now be known. 

 If it flowered at Midsummer we should either fail to 

 notice it or turn up our rose and lily-surfeited noses at 

 its humble charms, but in the darkest days of the year, in 

 old December or young January, it is a joyous sight. 

 Quite unintentionally it found its way into the cold frames 

 sacred to my rarer Crocuses, and at once showed me 

 plainly that it liked the treatment given to its neighbours, 

 by multiplying as rapidly as the rabbits the small girl who 

 was slow at sums envied so much. 



