HARDY IRISES. 



463 



developed for about six species of Iris ; an "attraction, therefore, was 

 wanted which should be equally useful without this disadvantage. We 

 have noted this raised median ridge as in Bulbous Iris, furrowed in the 

 ' Juno ' section. In Iris liexagona we find it furred.* The design which 

 provides this efficient attraction is that of a beard or raised ridge of stiff 

 hairs that can be coloured to look most tempting and perhaps to resemble 

 pollen. This, then, has solved the difficulty and has given us the great race 

 of Bearded Iris. These may be said to be European, though the largest 

 of them, a few species of the germanica group, have been found towards 



Fig. 143. — Iris persica. 



Eastern Europe and Asia Minor ; and it is noteworthy that the develop- 

 ment of hairs as a means of checking unwelcome insects, together with 

 a new function, that of fencing off wrong methods of getting at the 

 honey, has been carried to its greatest perfection towards this area of 

 Iris habitat, in the ' Oncocyclus ' group of Cushion Irises, so called from the 

 dense cushion of hair upon the falls ; the standards too, and sometimes 

 the stigmas, having hairs upon them to arrest progress of insects. The 

 standards have these hairs upon their inner surface, which is really the 

 "right side " of the petal, as may be readily seen in any splashed or well 



* Fur has also been tried on another American Iris, I. fulva, but this seems as a 

 development from a smooth sepal, and the fur is evenly spread. In culture this plant 

 is not easily satisfied, or is not very free-flowering. 



