35 



cannot be applied to Iris persica, since the bulbs underground 

 will stand, untouched, the severest frosts that ever visit England, 

 and, indeed, in many of its native homes it has to endure severer 

 frosts than those which visit this country. Nevertheless, it is in 

 many places difficult of cultivation, and for the following reasons : 

 it needs, when blooming and growing, genial mild warmth, and 

 when it has done growing, it needs to be ripened by heat and 

 drought. In this country, in most districts at least, it is pinched 

 with dry, cutting winds when it is young and tender, and drenched 

 with warm rains when it ought to be at rest ; hence bulbs, even 

 large and vigorous when planted, often refuse to flower beyond 

 the first year, and soon after disappear altogether. The Dutch 

 nurserymen, I understand, meet the difficulties of climate by 

 lifting the bulbs every year, and I believe that that is the best 

 course for most of us in this country also to observe. 

 This " climatic " treatment seems to be of much more im- 

 portance than the choice of soil. " Sandy peat " is, as usual, 

 recommended by many, but in its native home, in most cases in 

 which I have obtained information, it is found in loam, often of 

 a very stiff character ; and my own experience leads me to think 

 that the stronger soil yields the stronger plants. So far as I can 

 see, the Asia Minor varieties need the same treatment as the 

 typical form. 



If we take the Asia Minor forms as mere varieties of the one 

 species I. persica, we may say that the species has a fairly wide 

 distribution. Stretching from South Persia westward along the 

 more southern parts of Asia Minor, it extends from the extreme 

 east of Persia to the extreme west of Asia Minor. In Armenia 

 and Kurdistan, more especially in their more northern parts, it 

 is accompanied, and eventually replaced, by another Juno Iris, 

 which stretches farther north than it does namely, into the Cau- 

 casus and which, having been first discovered in that country, is 

 called I. caucasica. 



In the form which was first described, and which we must 

 therefore take as the type, I. caucasica is a dwarf plant. From 

 a tuft of four or six shiny, glossy, yellowish-green, ovate-lanceo- 

 late leaves, the margin of each of which is armed with a horny 

 ridge, rises a very short stem, often hardly visible, carrying one, 

 two, or three flowers having the Juno characters described above, 

 the whole flower being of a dull greenish-yellow. It is a plant 



