THE IRIS 153 



Perhaps unguicularis, or stylosa, as one more often 

 calls it, is the queen of the beardless group. At any 

 rate, I always think so at Christmas, when her lilac 

 loveliness peeps from the grassy foliage. The great 

 flat purple and gold, lavender and snow white of 

 laevigata in July sometimes shakes this opinion, but, 

 upon the whole, stylosa wins if only from associa- 

 tion. It was at my bedside in Algiers, when I suffered 

 some transient danger of death from pneumonia, but 

 secured a respite. Through the fever dreams of the 

 time flowers ran riot. Stylosa smiled, but the grand 

 strelitzias, which flourished in the hotel garden, took 

 shape of huge birds, and with their wonderful beaks 

 and orange-crimson crests strutted hither and thither 

 ferociously. The camels of the Arabs shrank to 

 the size of mice, and scurried in legions through my 

 brain ; the eternal bells rang and jangled old songs of 

 home ; all the thousand new ideas and impressions of 

 colour, sound, scent, and form that North Africa had 

 brought me broke loose at the beck of the fever fairies, 

 and played havoc with the nightly struggle to sleep. 

 A sinister turn marked these visions. My mind and 

 body alike were soaked with the contagion of disease. 

 The scent of olive wood and the name of Dr. 

 Thompson cling also to memory when I think of 

 the incident. Because olive wood burnt day and 

 night beside me for a season ; and Dr. Thompson, 

 assisted by nature and science, brought me out of 

 that peril in a manner very agreeable to us both. 

 Another flower also I link with the occasion that 

 very splendid thing, Bougainvillaea spectabilis laterita. 



