4% FEBRUARY. 



a delicate blue or violet color, but also extremely 

 sweet-scented. This low-growing flower may be 

 cultivated in glasses or flower-pots, to the ornament 

 and perfume of the room, early in March. If planted 

 in earth it need not be removed for three years ; 

 whereas the other sorts should be raised and re- 

 planted every year or two. In order to continue 

 the flower in perfection, the offsets should be stripped 

 off carefully without removing the bulb. It may be 

 propagated by seed sown in August, in rows three 

 inches apart, but it will not arrive at perfection for 

 three years. The bulbs should be raised in August 

 and replanted in September. The Spanish has many 

 beautiful varieties, which may be planted either now 

 or in autumn. The English is superior, both in size 

 and beauty, and is equally varied. 



There are two varieties of the tuberous rooted 

 Iris, which deserve especial notice. The Choice- 

 donian, whose flower is large and magnificent its 

 petals on a great scale, but delicate in texture 

 purple or black, striped with white ; the white 

 Florentine, whose petals are snow-white and of the 

 delicacy of silver paper, and whose root has the 

 odor of the violet. But the Persian Iris is consid- 

 ered the best of all these foreign ones ; its flowers 

 are not only beautiful, of a delicate blue or violet 

 color, but also extremely sweet-scented. 



A new kind, fibrous rooted, called the Iris tenax, 

 has been lately discovered. Its character is thus 

 given by Mr. Douglas, who sent it from the North 

 West coast of America to the London Horticultural 

 Society. " Its fibres were woven by the natives 

 into fishing nets, clothing, &c.; a sixteen thread 

 cord of it was of such strength and tenacity, as to 

 hold in its noose, when snared, the great deer of 

 California, one of the most powerful animals of its 



