64 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



This, again, is a plant where selection of the best forms 

 is very necessary. The poorest are small in size and pale 

 in colour, but the best have large flowers of a good deep 

 blue-purple, or even of a velvety red-purple that borders 

 on crimson. This form is in commerce as /. versicolor 

 kermesiana, but it will appear among seedlings if the 

 raiser has any luck at all. 7. versicolor is, of course, most 

 luxuriant in damp rich soil, but it will do very fairly well 

 with Pseudacorus in dry, hungry sand. 



/. setosa was originally described as an Asiatic plant, but 

 forms that cannot be separated from it are found in 

 America, both in Alaska and on the east side from 

 Labrador to Maine. There it is known as /. Hookeri or 

 /. setosa canadensis or 7. tridentata. At least half-a-dozen 

 forms of it will come true from seed and be obviously 

 dissimilar when growing side by side, but at the same 

 time be practically indistinguishable as dry herbarium 

 specimens. The peculiarity of this Iris is that the stan- 

 dards have dwindled until they are only small points of 

 various shapes about half an inch long, and their disap- 

 pearance is, in most forms, counterbalanced by the in- 

 creased size of the falls. The colour is usually blue, but 

 some shades are so light and pale as to become almost grey. 



The last of the water-loving Irises, as also one of the 

 latest to flower, is the well-known Japanese hybrid 7. 

 Kcempferi, so familiar an object in Japanese art. The 

 varieties known as 7. Kampferi are evidently the highly- 

 developed product of the hybridiser's art, but no ac- 

 count has ever yet been given of the steps by which they 

 have been obtained from the wild species. The latter 

 is a much more easily cultivated plant than the imported 



