28 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to a couple of varieties of I. alata in the Atlas Mountains and 

 I. diver sifolia in Abyssinia. 



As this bulbous group goes eastward, its character of fibrous, 

 annual, dying-away roots changes more into the thick, fleshy, 

 persistent, nourishing roots of the Juno section. Towards Syria, 

 Palestine, and Asia Minor begins the reticulata group with 

 netted, handsome bulbs and quaint, strange flowers. 



Again, starting from Spain along the northern shores of the 

 Mediterranean, France, Riviera, Switzerland, Tyrol, Italy, 

 Austria, Hungary, Turkey, and Greece, we find a race of dwarf 

 spring flowering Iris mostly mountainous plants, of whose great 

 garden value I will speak later on. Germany, the Black Forest, 

 Austria, Hungary, South Russia, Turkey, and Turkey in Asia 

 give us the tall summer flowering species, many of whose hybrids 

 and varieties are to be seen in English gardens, but by no means 

 too plentifully. The largest development of these seems to 

 culminate in Asia Minor, which has furnished those enormous 

 flowers of Germanica, Amas, Sivas, Orientalis, and Kharput or 

 Asiaticus. In Asia Minor these give way to the very curious, 

 beautiful, and extraordinary types of the Oncocyclus, many of 

 which, thanks to Dr. Foster's and the Rev. H. Ewbanks' success 

 with them, and personal kindness, I have been able to represent, 

 though as yet I cannot say that they like my care in the garden. 

 Together with these Irises that I have mentioned is a race, more 

 numerous perhaps in the northern part of our zone, characterised 

 by narrow long leaves, narrow segmented long flowers, wiry and 

 not fleshy roots, and without that particular character of a beard 

 which we shall come to speak of afterwards. These, I say, are 

 thinly scattered towards our side of the hemisphere, but they 

 increase greatly in number as we go eastward through Russia, 

 Siberia, China, and Japan, and reach their greatest development 

 in America, a country in which the other or old-world forms, of 

 which we have hitherto spoken, are scarcely, if at all, represented. 

 Throughout the southern temperate zone there are other genera 

 of bulbous and rhizomatous plants which have often somewhat 

 similar flowers, and which may be called Irids, as Gladiolus, 

 Moraea, Dietes, Ixia, but amongst which no true Iris is to be 

 found. Thus we see that Iris is an entirely northern genus of 

 temperate limits. 



Mr. J. G. Baker, in his admirable text-book, the 1 Monograph 



