ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



Irises, my heartiest thanks and sympathy to you !) ; and 

 one is strongly tempted by Charon, Aspasia, Jphigeneia. 

 And yet, and yet, from what I have so far seen of these 

 trumpeted beauties at Horticultural Shows, they might 

 more suitably be called after Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Brown, 

 and Mrs. Robinson. Truth to tell, they have, so far as 

 I have seen, large and rather undistinguished flowers, 

 coloured in those dim, indeterminate, and muddy tones 

 which pass muster for artistic to so many aspiring tastes. 

 For these, as for the many hideous intermediate pinks 

 and magentas of the newer Oriental Poppies, let all 

 who ignorantly crave after fashion grow ecstatic ; true 

 gardeners will always know without telling that a flower's 

 one claim to beauty and adoration rests in its unstained 

 clarity of simple or combined colour. Nor does this 

 definition exclude the subtlety that is such a charm in 

 Iris Korolkowi, Dianthus neglectus. Anemone rohinsoniana ; 

 nor, on the other hand, must subtlety ever be confounded 

 with mere muddiness of tone and lack of any definite 

 colour at all. 



Who is there in England that grows Iris setosa and 

 Iris laevigata? And yet of these two ignored parents 

 has been born the Iris of all Irises, the Iris of Japan. 

 Iris Kaempferi takes the stage with a brazen flourish of 

 trumpets ; there is nothing like it in the garden for 

 arrogance, for subtlety, for obviousness, for sheer insolent 

 violence of beauty. No taste, not the most crude and 

 immature, not the most delicate and over-refined, can 

 refuse its homage, its instinctive, gasping homage, to the 

 first glimpse of that royal Japanese Iris. Its appeal is 

 almost scornful in its innocence of all appeal ; you have 

 to worship the thing, whether you will or no, and the 

 plant condescends to no wiles to conciliate your feelings. 

 And the heartless splendour of Kaempferi has its reward. 

 One adores it as something supreme, one loves it reluc- 



