154 MY GARDEN 



Great sprays of this glorious plant, brought to my 

 bedside in the hand of a friend, shone like a 

 flame there, and helped convalescence with the joy 

 it wakened. But stylosa was the second heroine of 

 the comedy the first, of course, being the Lady of 

 my Garden, who nursed her stricken gardener back 

 to normal conditions. 



Then, once more afield, with a dust-dry, genial 

 sirocco blowing, I went forth to find the iris of 

 Algiers. There she was amid the dewy hedges of 

 vineyards, her little heart touched with gold. She 

 peeped about from secret places, tangled wastes, or 

 the fierce arms of the prickly pear that gigantic 

 opuntia whose silver-grey lights every hillside about 

 Algiers. The purest mauve she is just deepening 

 in tone on the fall where the yellow signal ends with 

 a touch of orange. A delicious network of lavender 

 and white lies on either side of the signal bar, and 

 runs over it faintly. The standards are of the same 

 pure lavender, touched to a richer note at the claw. 

 To my nose the fragrance is exactly that of a bluebell. 

 I can shut my eyes and see an English wood in spring. 

 But when I open them again stylosa reminds me of 

 her own home. I note whitewashed hovels scattered 

 on a mighty hillside. They gleam like flowers there ; 

 and round about the wild olive climbs ; vines, still 

 naked, stick their tortuous branches from a sea of 

 wild flowers ; heather's snow and lavendula's purple 

 dot the waste ; and far beneath spread orange orchards 

 ablaze with fruit. Crags of limestone sometimes break 

 out against the russet and tawny earth, and the 



