JANUARY 13 



and the trim old gentleman in black. It was the only 

 nursery I ever saw where one would expect to see 

 fairies on a summer's night. 



I never tire of admiring and praising Iris stylosa, 

 which has proved itself such a good plant for English 

 gardens ; at any rate, for those in our southern coun- 

 ties. Lovely in form and colour, sweetly-scented and 

 with admirable foliage, it has in addition to these 

 merits the unusual one of a blooming season of six 

 months' duration. The first flowers come with the 

 earliest days of November, and its season ends with a 

 rush of bloom in the first half of April. , Then is the 

 time to take up old tufts and part them, and plant 

 afresh ; the old roots will have dried up into brown 

 wires, and the new will be pushing. It thrives in 

 rather poor soil, and seems to bloom all the better for 

 having its root-run invaded by some stronger plant. 

 When I first planted a quantity I had brought from its 

 native place, I made the mistake of putting it in a 

 well-prepared border. At first I was delighted to see 

 how well it flourished, but as it gave me only thick 

 masses of leaves a yard long, and no flowers, it was 

 clear that it wanted to be less well fed. After chang- 

 ing it to poor soil, at the foot of a sunny wall close to 

 a strong clump of Alstromeria, I was rewarded with a 

 good crop of flowers ; and the more the Alstromeria 

 grew into it on one side and Plumbago Zarpentm on the 

 other, the more freely the brave little Iris flowered. 

 The flower has no true stem ; what serves as a stem, 



