A BEAUTIFUL IRIS 71 



obtained, for there are many forms that masquerade under 

 the name of /. histrioides, but none is so good as this. 

 Early in February the fat buds should appear almost as 

 soon as the horny tips of the leaves pierce the soil. They 

 quickly open and show their splendours of light and dark 

 blue, splashed with white at the throat. /. Krelagei is another 

 Iris, which at its best has magnificent flowers of crimson 

 velvet, but there are Krelageis and Krelageis, and the poorest 

 have small flowers of a washy purple and are hardly worth 

 cultivating. 



Almost before /. alata has sent up its last flower, some 

 small but brilliantly coloured relatives should be ready to 

 succeed it. It is hard indeed to describe the colour scheme 

 of /. persica. Even with the help of the most elaborate 

 colour charts we are entirely baffled. Imagine a pearly 

 white flower washed over with turquoise-blue and sea-green 

 laid on unevenly ; give it a blotch of warm purple-brown 

 on the blade of the falls and a central orange stripe, and you 

 will have some faint idea of the beauties of I. persica. It 

 was grown in England three hundred years ago, but either 

 its constitution is not strong or there is something in its 

 cultivation that we do not understand, for it seems to get 

 rarer instead of more common, and it is seldom that one 

 sees /. persica in the form of a vigorous colony. Wretched 

 specimens appear in tiny pots at shows from time to time, 

 but the flowers are then undersized and puny, and attract 

 but little attention. 



Those who cannot succeed with persica itself should 

 try I. Heldreichii, which is sometimes called stenophylla, 

 though its leaves are scarcely narrower than those of 

 persica itself. Its large flowers are a combination of pale 



