46 IRIS VERNA. SPRING IRIS. 



The word iris, as is well known, is Greek for rainbow, but the 

 etymology of the word goes beyond this, acquainting us with the 

 reason why the rainbow is so called ; it seems to have been 

 derived from iro, to foretell, the rainbow in old times having 

 been supposed to be the heavenly messenger foretelling rain 

 instead of, as now recognized, the actual consequence of the 

 shower. 



The Iris vcrna is one of the earliest of spring flowers in the 

 Southern States, being often in bloom in March among the 

 forest leaves and before the green grass has hardly begun to 

 grow. As Park Benjamin says of the Trailing Arbutus, — 



" Thou coniest when spring her coronal weaves, 

 And thou hidest thyself mid dead strewn leaves; 

 Where the young grass lifts its tender blade, 

 Thy home and thy resting place is made; 

 And in the spot of thy lowly birth. 

 Unseen, thou hloomest,— " 



Mrs. Sara J. Hale, in her "Flora's Interpreter," explains to 

 the reader that the Trailing Arbutus is " a sort of a strawberry 

 vine, found in New England in March, the earliest of all spring 

 flowers." When such a monstrous suggestion can pass through 

 the current of literature unchallenged, we shall surely be par- 

 doned for using the poet's lines so appropriately here. 



Our plate shows the arrangement by which the plant is able 

 to flower so early. Most Irises have to give as much growth to 

 the flowering shoot as to the leaves on the barren shoots. 

 Indeed in many cases the flower scape exceeds the leaves in 

 length. In this species the increase of the plant is by under- 

 ground runners which form leaf buds at various distances along 

 their length. These buds make leaves at once, and form otl;er 

 buds at the base which do not develop till the following spring. 

 These basal buds which are to flower push up immediately when 

 the warm spring weather comes, and bloom as soon as- they reach 

 the surface, forming only a few diminutive leaves along the 

 stems. Our Fig. i represents this. At Vvg. 2 we have the 



