The Iris Walk in May 



which the upright forms are the commoner, the supposed 

 upright form of 5. babylonica known as var. pekinensis is 

 exceedingly rare, and has been but lately introduced to 

 Kew. 



Now, then after this rest on the seat under the Willow, 

 let us cease our musings over dead poets and emperors 

 and get back to the flowers. Either end of the Iris 

 ftorentina bed is rounded off by one of the two bays 

 formed by the pond ; the Willow benefits by rooting into 

 one of these, and the other helps a clump of Gunnera 

 chilensis, as we nowadays must call G. manicata, the finest 

 of its family, for though its leaves are not so much indented 

 as those of G. scabra, its longer petioles raise them some 

 foot or two higher. In May these leaves are not fully 

 developed, but, unless sharp frosts have been worrying 

 them, should be large enough to be worth looking at and 

 yet not too large to hide the huge cone-shaped heads of 

 insignificant little flowers which show up more then 

 than at any other time. I like to leave one or two of 

 these heads to show what sort of flower these plants 

 think fit to produce, each floret about the size of a 

 housefly's head, while a leaf is five feet across and on a 

 stalk six feet or more high. But I cut off the remainder 

 of the dozen or so flower-heads that my clump produces, 

 as I think their loss encourages it to put its strength into 

 the leaves. 



A round bed in the turf comes between the pond and 

 river here, and a fastigiate Hawthorn grows in its centre 

 and makes a good contrast to the Weeping Ash of 

 the other bay of the pond. Now we will turn to the 

 left and follow the pond edge until we get a view right 

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