aiO ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



like bad blotting-paper than Iris susiana — which, to be 

 truly complimentary, really recalls a piece of grey 

 Japanese silk-crape. Now there are many who adore 

 these mottled horrors, for mottled horrors I will intoler- 

 antly continue to call them ('and I wish they was in 

 Jonadge's belly, I do'). For such let them abound; I 

 merely offer my warning to those who love, as I do, clear, 

 clean shades of colour. As to the double and semi- 

 double forms I dare not speak so drastically. I have 

 seen some hideous ones, tight, bunchy, voluminous, devoid 

 of elegance or beauty of line ; I have also seen some very 

 stately ones, like huge blooms of Clematis. On the whole, 

 I would eschew double varieties entirely, and keep an 

 open mind about good, graceful semi-doubles. For the 

 benefit of those who see Iris Kaempferi in Japan I would 

 here note that the exquisite crimson-veined white and 

 pink ones that one sees and pounces on out there are not 

 genuine varieties, but dyed, for the time, by insertion 

 into some acid. So that the lot of those who purchase 

 plants of these delusive lovelinesses is hard indeed, and 

 pitiful. 



Iris Sibirica introduces us to a very valuable group of 

 Irises which are genuine water-side plants, and quite 

 invaluable for the edge of stream or bog. They are all 

 of the easiest possible culture, the utmost good-nature 

 and the most imperturbable permanence, needing no 

 attention at all from year to year, and quite capable of 

 being naturalised in some choice corner beside water. A 

 very strong family likeness marks them all, and sibirica 

 is their type — a slender tuft of dense, straight, slim 

 stems, carrying along their course half a dozen beautiful 

 and beautifully-shaped blossoms of pale blue, veined and 

 marbled all over with a deeper shade. Major, orientalis, 

 longiscapa, sanguirwa are all varieties, of which the best 

 is major, having larger flowers than any. Then there is 



