206 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



A proof of the brilliant scornfulness inherent in the 

 Japanese Iris may be found in the undeniable fact that 

 it will never tolerate being mixed with other plants. 

 The Japanese Iris has no place in the garden, no place in 

 the companionship of the bog. It must have a tract to 

 itself, and be planted, not in isolated clumps, but in 

 tracts and masses. Then, perhaps, you may arrange 

 Trollkos among it for early summer, and Gentiana 

 asclepiadea to come on in August and September ; but 

 it is always fatal and ridiculous to plant the Japanese 

 Iris in individual crowns among commoner neighbours. 

 The Japanese themselves fully recognise this, and in all 

 gardens, public or private, Iris Kaempferi has a broad 

 bed to itself away from other things. There is one ex- 

 ception, of course, to this rule, and that is that a lonely 

 clump of the Iris is allowed to look superb, to strike the 

 keynote of the whole composition, when set by itself, in 

 a commanding position, on the edge of some lake, at the 

 bend of some stream. But even here the rule holds good, 

 and the effect depends on the complete isolation of the 

 Iris. Any companionship of weaker lines will ruin the 

 whole scheme at once. No plant in the garden has quite 

 the same mixture of stiffness and grace; the sheaf of 

 slender stems, all of arrowy straightness, scarcely diverg- 

 ing as they rise from their common base, give a clean, 

 fierce strength of line to a clump of Iris Kaempferi such 

 as you will see nowhere else. A good crown of Bambusa 

 nigra, indeed, has the same grace, and more divergence, 

 though it doubles the grace at the expense of the stiff- 

 ness, and so loses the tart elegance, at once crisp and 

 archaic, that delights one in the decorative force of the 

 Iris. Of course, planted in masses and rows like potatoes, 

 one loses this effect. But then one barters it willingly, 

 perhaps, for the blaze of colour that results from such an 

 arrangement. This is how you see Iris Kaempferi in the 



