Early Irises 



a dozen, no garden should be without a good clump of it. 

 The variety has never increased with me as lavishly as little 

 sophenensis does, but then I have not tried it in the cold 

 frame which is the main source of my compound interest 

 harvest of the ants' eggs produced by sophenensis. 



I do not believe it would prove so prolific as that 

 generous-minded midget however it were treated, for I 

 sent a few corms of sophenensis to a friend who gardens 

 in Cheshire, and she wrote to tell me that now after three 

 years they have grown to the number of 168. Yet the 

 last time I saw it shown in flower at Vincent Square its 

 proud owner named 35. 6d. as the price of its departure 

 into other hands. 



There are other early Irises, but they are not found 

 here, for I have been obliged to renounce as expensive 

 luxuries needing annual renewal such delights as 7. histrio 

 and 7. Vartanii. They insist on producing long and tender 

 leaves before they flower, and winds and frost soon take 

 the tucker out of them, and, limp and browned, they cannot 

 collect the necessary carbon dioxide to feed the plant, and 

 no fat corm results for next season. Wise old histrioides, 

 to be contented with those stumpy, stiff leaves until 

 warmer days advise their lengthening ! 7. alata ought to, 

 and sometimes does, illuminate this dark spell, but though 

 it lives in sunny rock- nooks here it is only after excep- 

 tionally grilling summers that it plucks up heart to flower 

 outside. It used to do fairly well in the Crocus frame, 

 but has been crowded out for my more beloved children. 



Before the last lag-behind forms of 7. histrioides have 

 faded, I look to some precocious seedling forms of 7. 

 33 C 



