52 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



There is usually in flower before the end of April, in 

 company with /. ruthenica, another equally widely distri- 

 buted Iris, namely, I. ensata. Whenever any kind friend 

 sends home Iris seeds from Central Asia or even plants from 

 China, they usually turn out to be /. ensata. It seems to 

 abound everywhere in Central Asia and Northern China. It 

 is not very ornamental, but some varieties have flowers re- 

 markable for the delicacy of their grey-blue colouring and ex- 

 quisite veinings. A curious feature of this Iris is that the new 

 growths always appear pale yellow in spring. The colour 

 is at once conspicuous in an Iris garden, and does not occur 

 in any other species to anything like the same extent. The 

 flowers appear among the leaves usually before the foliage 

 is more than half grown. In Central Asia, where the 

 change from winter to spring is more sudden and com- 

 plete than with us, this Iris appears to throw up its blooms 

 very quickly, and they thus rise above, or at least to a 

 level with the leaves. It is not a difficult Iris to grow, and 

 appears to have but few likes or dislikes in the matter of soil. 



Once May is reached, it becomes difficult to keep to 

 any strictly chronological order, for this month and June 

 are the height of the Iris season. Usually the next Apogon 

 to flower after ruthenica and ensata is an American species 

 which frequently goes by the name of /. Tolmeiana, to which, 

 however, it is only doubtfully entitled. This is a plant with 

 a simple, foot-high stem, and two flowers of some shade 

 of lilac, more or less blotched or marked with yellow at 

 the junction of haft and blade. It is nearly allied to the 

 mountain forms of /. longipetala, a species possessing a 

 taller stem that sometimes bears a side branch and always 

 has three or four flowers in its spathe. Sir Michael Foster 



