Comments on Recent Iris Notes 



The Fall Flowering Iris has called forth some 

 interesting notes. On reading Mrs. Wilder's 

 quotation from Mr. W. R. Dykes's letter I im- 

 mediately betook myself to his published books 

 for I find that opinions are constantly being 

 adapted to the results of more recent experiments 

 in hybridization. "The Genus Iris" was, un- 

 fortunately on a loaning expedition but his de- 

 lightful small book "Irises" stated that lurida 

 was of unknown origin and might not be a really 

 good species; personally I should suggest varie- 

 gata x Cengialti as a possible parentage and I 

 wonder if any Iris enthusiasts have secured seed- 

 lings that might bear this out. In one of our 

 recent letters from Mr. Dykes he wrote that the 

 horticultural rather than the botanical point of 

 view was becoming of greatest interest. At 

 present only the orange bearded Goldcrest (light 

 to lavender violet, Ridgeway) and the newly 

 introduced Richard II are attributed to this 

 source as far as I know and it is a pleasure to look 

 forward to new Iris, though whether we shall be 

 allowed to import novelties remains to be seen. 

 The lutescens, by the way, that Mrs. McKinney 

 refers to so delightfully is probably lutescens var. 

 Statellae, as the type is described and, in our gar- 

 den, has proved lower growing and so less clearly 

 colored as to prove unpleasing. I wonder if many 

 are familiar] with] the fall blooming J apogon Iris 

 dichotoma that Mr. B. Y. Morrison described in a 

 recent issue of the Journal of the International Gar- 

 den Club. I have not seen the tall much branched 

 stalk and small ivory white, purple blotched 

 flowers but seedlings came through the hard 

 winter of -1917-18 and I expect to get blossoms 

 this August or September. — R. S. Sturtevant, 

 Mass. 



Winter Blooming Iris. — One of the most 

 frequently mentioned plants in the lists of winter 

 flowers in the English garden papers is Iris 

 stylosa and its varieties. I have often wanted 

 to try this but have hesitated to expose the plants 

 to what seemed certain death. Last spring, 

 however, I obtained some fine clumps from a 

 California nursery and tried to make them happy 

 for an Eastern winter. With the exception of the 

 var. speciosa all had grown to good clumps by 

 autumn. They were planted in a bed in which 

 the native heavy clay had been lightened with 

 sand and leaf mould liberally worked in. About 

 the plants was a generous mulch of leaf mould 

 and during the freezing weather burlap was laid 



loosely over the 

 clumps, more as a 

 protection against 

 freezing of the 

 evergreen foliage 

 than for any ben- 

 efit to the roots. 

 By November, 

 buds were appar- 

 ent on most of the 

 plants but these 

 did not push into 

 growth till Feb- 

 ruary. The first 

 flower opened on 

 the var. marginata 

 on February four- 

 teenth. Others 

 followed, with the 

 var. alba in bloom 

 about two weeks 

 later. At the 

 present writing, 

 March fourteenth, 

 the type has shown 

 no blooms, and 

 the var. speciosa 

 (which had lain 

 dormant all sum- 

 mer) is only push- 

 ing into growth. 



Iris stylosa marginata l\ nat. size) 

 March 3rd at Washington, 



drawn 

 D,C 



Mrs. Dean writes me that this plant is one of the 

 most valuable of plants in southern California 

 where it is not as well known as it should be. 

 And certainly for the milder parts of the Eastern 

 coast states it is worth a place. The flowers in 

 the var. marginata, which is figured, are of a 

 delicate violet color, recalling the shades in the 

 pallida Irises. The standards flare and spread 

 as in the Japanese Irises. Thejr are self colored, 

 while the falls show veining in a slightly darker 

 color with a white patch at the turn of the blade. 

 Here too is a small patch of yellow as in most 

 Irises. There is a most delightful, though 

 delicate, fragrance. The one other charming 

 feature of the flowers is the delicate coloring, like 

 a sprinkling of gold dust that covers the upper 

 surfaces of the style arms. During the rough 

 weather of February and March these flowers 

 develop best if they are picked when still in the 

 bud state and opened in the house. They last 

 about three days. In cutting care should be 

 taken to cut far enough down as the flower has 

 practically no stem, and those flowers that I cut 

 through the extended perianth tube did not open. 

 —B. Y. Morrison, D. C. 



Iris lurida. — Mrs. Wilder's note on this was of 

 interest but its habit of throwing up a second crop 

 of blossoms seems an accident of position or, very 

 possibly of the particular plant; certainly in our 

 experience of fifteen years it has never bloomed 

 except at the usual time, a little earlier than the 

 great pageant of the Bearded Iris. Lurida, 

 though called a species, may be of hybrid origin 

 (see "The Genus Iris," W. R. Dykes) and the 

 origin of Mrs. Wilder's plant may be different 

 from ours; whether this habit is inheritable might 

 be easily tested and might result in a new strain 

 of late-blooming Iris. Variation in time of bloom 

 is not unknown, though rarely is it of garden 

 effect and it may often be ascribed to some favor- 

 able condition of soil or weather. Iris pumila 

 hybrids frequently give, a fall bloom and occa- 

 sionally seedlings of spring germination flower 

 the same season: John Foster, a delightful little 

 pearl-white hybrid, gave a crop of taller, slender 

 stalks of bloom in late June during the wet season 

 of 1917: Mrs. Alan Gray often shows its pale pink- 

 lavender in the summer or fall, and Lorelei has 

 developed very late buds with undeveloped stems. 

 The comparatively small number of examples of 

 abnormal season of bloom suggests that it 

 is not an inheritable character but purely 

 due to environment, perhaps analagous to the 

 adaptation that plants develop when transferred 

 to the southern hemisphere. — R. S. Sturtevant, 

 Mass. 



Iris for Cut Flowers. — In response to Mr. H. 

 G. Reading's inquiries about purple Iris for cut 

 flowers, I should like to recommend the hybrids 

 of I. pallida, particularly Albert Victor, Man- 

 draliscae, and Mr. Farr's Juniata, the tallest and 

 stateliest of the family. Mandraliscae's great 

 spikes of rich purple, six to eight blossoms on the 

 stalk, make a gorgeous color note in garden or 

 room, and the rhizomes increase with great 

 rapidity. Juniata and Albert Victor rank among 

 the blues in color, but their statehness, wonderful 

 shading, and delicate perfume should insure them 

 a place in any hardy garden. A much smaller 

 and later variety is Othello, of the neglecta sec- 

 tion, a delightful pansy purple on long stiff stems; 

 it also increases rapidly. Planted with white 

 I. sibirica it makes a lovely show; with I. Jacques- 

 iana it repeats the tones and textures of bronze 

 and purple Pansies. (I. Jacquesiana itself is as 

 wonderful as a Japanese carving of smoky quartz; 

 it is not included in this list of specially tough- 

 textured ones, as it requires an umbrella during 

 June hail storms; personally, however, I consider 

 it worth any trouble.) Then there is an early 

 purple German Iris, unknown to me by name, 

 that is common in old gardens in southern Penn- 



sylvania. It stands about 2 ft. high, three or 

 four blooms on a stem, bluish purple, with the falls 

 heavily veined with white. Its general character 

 is like that of the old florentina, and the two in 

 bloom together are a lovely sight, the pearly 

 delicacy of one enhancing the sturdy richness of 

 the other. Perhaps some of the neighbors can 

 help me identify this nameless favorite. My 

 garden is on a bleak north slope in Minnesota, 

 but it has six weeks of glory in May and June, 

 when twenty varieties of Iris follow each other in 

 prayerful procession, testifying to the endurance 

 of both drouth and frost of this delicately beau- 

 tiful Fleur-de-lis. — Mary G. Starr, Excelsior, 

 Minn. 



Autumn Blooming Iris. — In addition to the 

 flowers that one gets by the chance blooming of 

 various pogoniris, one may always have flowers 

 in the autumn from Iris dichotoma. This is a 

 Chinese species from the northern and western 

 provinces. The plants that I have were raised 

 from seed, sent to me by a friend in a small vil- 

 lage some ninety miles north fromPeking. There 

 the climate in winter brings very low tempera- 

 tures but little rain or snow, which is a very dif- 

 ferent condition from that in this country. The 

 seedlings, however, came through the severe win- 

 ter of 1917-1918 and flowered freely in August. 

 The blooming interval here was from August 

 fifteenth till September fifteenth, which is a little 

 shorter than in China where there were still 

 flowers on the plants on September twentieth 

 with more buds to come. The plant suggests 

 Blackberry Lily (Pardanthus chinensis) in 

 growth producing a wide fan of leaves from 

 which rises the three to three-and-a-half foot, 

 widely branching stalk. Each bract covered 

 many flowers, which is well as the individual 

 blooms last but a single afternoon. The flowers 

 are not large — perhaps two and one-half inches 

 across. The standards flare back on a level 

 with the falls so that the flower has the open 

 appearance that one finds in the Evansia Irises. 

 In color the flowers vary from unspotted ivory 

 white to whites fairly 

 well covered with 

 splotches of dull 

 purple. It is said that 

 there are purple forms 

 but I have never had or 

 seen such a specimen. 

 The drawing illustrates 

 but a small portion of 

 a single stalk of bloom. 

 1 he plants are easily 

 raised from seed and 

 flower within eighteen 

 months of sowing. This 

 is not so showy perhaps 

 as the occasional flow- 

 ers to be had on the 

 bearded Irises but it 

 can be depended upon, 

 since this is the correct 

 time for flowering. The 

 autumn floweringof the 

 dwarf bearded Irises is 

 common experience, 

 but in spite of the note 

 of the autumn flower- 

 ing of Mrs. Alan Gray 

 in Wallaces' English 

 list, I have never 

 known that variety to 

 flower in this country 

 in the autumn until I 

 read Mrs. McKinney's 

 note in a recent issue 

 of the Garden 

 Magazine. I am 



„,.•„,.„ .„ 1 -r 1 Part of stalk of Ins 



CUriOUS to know if her dichotoma; flowers ivory 



experience is the usual white to dull white, 

 one.— B. Y. Morrison. ^t^ddl purple U» 



