144 MY GARDEN 



Mr. Lynch ; and it may not be mistaken for any other 

 iris that grows by virtue of its reduced fall and 

 immense, veined standard. Parvar is a good hybrid 

 raised by Sir Michael Foster between paradoxa and 

 variegata. I have a stout and healthy plant of this. 

 Ewbankiana, happily named after that great iris- 

 grower, the late Rev. H. Ewbank, and acutiloba I do 

 not know ; but I would sooner possess the yellow 

 urmiensis, which adds scent to its other distinctions. 

 This comes from North- West Persia, and is still very 

 rare. 



Atrofusca bitterly disappointed me last season. 

 This fine oncocyclus from the east side of Jordan 

 threw a splendid bloom-spike, but I did something 

 wrong, no doubt too much water, or else too little 

 probably and it withered untimely away. A friend 

 consoled me with a sight of atro-purpurea. 



This oncocyclus had little of purple about it in the 

 flower I beheld. The colour harmony was rather of 

 rich sepia and gold. The falls were a deep, lustrous 

 brown, and they darkened to a broad central spot of 

 black that shone like velvet. The beard was yellow, 

 each hair being tipped with black. The pollen showed 

 pale corn-colour, and the style-arms changed their 

 tint at the stigma from a gold shot with brown to 

 the rich chocolate tone which dominated the entire 

 blossom, and lent it a wonderful opulence and gloomy 

 splendour. Like others of the clan, it simply killed 

 any flower brought into contact with it. 



The comparatively new nigricans I have flowered 

 with success, and find it the darkest of all as nearly 



