462 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



surface ends in a lip (the stigma) which, when ready for pollen, slightly 

 curls back and becomes humid — exposed, note, to a rub from an insect's 

 bushy back as it enters, but closed from any touch by that insect on 

 leaving. The anther, with its pollen, is securely tucked away under the 

 arch of the stigma, and at the base where the junction is effected between 

 the outer sepals are thin cup-like glands where the honey is situated. 

 Note (1) that the pollen is useless where it is ; (2) that it can only reach 

 and fertilise a flower if carried by an insect ; (3) that the insect, to 

 reach it accidentally, as it were, must travel down the right way, and 

 not take a short cut to the honey from the base. On this last problem 

 and its many solutions hangs much of the interest, beauty, and strange- 

 ness of an Iris flower. First, given the sepal turned back as an alighting- 

 board, which has been seen from a distance, strong lines drawn on this in 

 the direction it is intended the insect should travel will tend to make him 



travel so. We owe the markings on an Iris to this. (2) What if he 

 alights clumsily and tries to force a way in at the side ? This trouble 

 I. anglica or xiphioides (fig. 140), I. alata (fig. 141), caucasica, persica 

 (figs. 12G, 142, 143), and I think all the ' Juno ' section of Bulbous 

 [rises, have successfully combated by the addition of a curling-up process 

 on either side of the falls, on the narrow part called the claw ; this gives 

 a unique appearance to the flower. (3) But what if the insect is too 

 small, sees the signal, follows the lines, gets the honey, and does not 

 carry away pollen ? The first effort to combat this is a compression of the 

 stigma to the fall as in the spuria group. The second is to raise a median 

 line, as in Bulbous Irises generally, and, where this is not sufficient, to 

 enlarge it to a ridge as in 1 Juno,' to a crest as in cristata, verna, Milesii, 

 fimbriate, or to an irregular saw-like fence, as in I. tcctorum* (4) This 

 crest tends to be a hindrance ; at any rate it has only been used and 



* This last is like n cock's comb, is white and splashed freely about with purple 

 spots, a wonderfully strange and beautiful flower, not quite hardy perhaps one ought 

 to say, but at any rate well repaying shelter. 



Fig. 142. — Iris persica (reduced). 



