70 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



climate. But then unfortunately they would probably lose 

 their early-flowering habit. The other quality that makes 

 this Iris so valuable is its delightful scent of almonds, 

 which any gleam of pale winter sun is enough to bring out. 



Even if these two autumnal Irises are hard to keep and 

 almost demand annual renewal, this is not the case with 

 the other small bulbous plants that seem so well adapted for 

 the rock garden, /. reticulata, with its brilliant uniform of 

 intense violet and gold and faint scent of violets, is probably 

 the best known of the early spring-flowering species. It 

 has, however, several relatives that are no less beautiful and 

 quite as hardy. The smallest of all, I. Danfordice, found 

 nearly forty years ago by Mrs. Danford in little colonies on 

 the slopes of the Cilician Taurus, is bright yellow, some- 

 times faintly dotted with olive-green. This little mite seems 

 indeed not yet to be full grown, for its standards are merely 

 diminutive spines. A cousin that usually flowers at the 

 same time in February is I. Bakeriana* The falls here 

 seem to be cut out of violet velvet, so dark as almost to be 

 black. It is dappled with white at the throat, where the 

 blade of the fall meets the haft, and it distinguishes itself 

 from all other Irises by its eight-ribbed leaves. 



Bulbous plants with blue flowers are rare, and even when 

 we have made up our minds to pay as much as three or four 

 shillings for a single bulb of that most brilliant of all blue 

 bulbs, Tecophilcea cyanocrocus, we cannot all succeed in 

 making it flower or increase. But any one who cares to 

 invest the same sum in a dozen bulbs of the form of /. 

 histrioides that is supplied by Mr. C. G. Van Tubergen, Jun., 

 of Haarlem, will surely not regret the outlay. It is necessary 

 to specify the source from which these bulbs may be 



