30 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



outside for a minute together, it would fly away in dudgeon, 

 and, having failed to find any good in such an object, would 

 never again waste time upon it. This I found very advantageous, 

 for I could always count upon the fact that an Iris would 

 never set seed with me unless I fertilised it myself; but I 

 grow many Iris now, and the Bombi who now resort to my 

 garden have very greatly increased in numbers and species, 

 and, what is more, have learnt the lesson perfectly. So that 

 Iris now seeds freely, and especial care has to be observed 

 with fertilised flowers to prevent insects undoing my work of 

 hybridising. 



To return. In Bearded Iris there are two very distinct and 

 well-defined groups, one having solitary or few flowers to a stem, 

 which is short, so that the whole plant in flower is seldom more 

 than one foot in height in the largest of this section. The flowers 

 in nearly every case are large for the size of the plant, and, alas ! 

 fugitive. The majority of Iris blooms have a three days' span 

 of existence. Some few bulbous and early spring and summer 

 flowering ones have six days', and one species, I. sisyrynchium, 

 a real gem, the oldest Iris, as far as is known or surmised, 

 and the one with greatest geographical range, blooms from 

 mid-day to three o'clock, when, worn out with old age, and 

 perhaps effort in beauty, it curls and dies. Of course other 

 individuals keep up the show, and especially when there are, 

 as in most species, many buds to a stem, for as long a season 

 as the majority of other plants, but you never will have Iris 

 flowers to tire of ; it is a pageant that is always changing. 



Members of this dwarf group of Iris are always spring 

 bloomers, that is to say, they begin in March, with the little 

 yumila, or one of its varieties, a plant two inches high at 

 flowering time, and covered — so coverec] that nothing but a blaze 

 of colour is to be seen, no leaves or plant — with blossoms of 

 red purple in the type, pale blue, white, indigo, and yellow ; 

 and as these charming little spring varieties have every year a 

 neck-and-neck race for earliness, sometimes one, sometimes 

 another coming in first, they must all be grown for an early 

 show of bloom in March or April. Following upon these are 

 viresce?is, a vigorous garden plant which has given me excellent 

 results ; Chamairis, biflora, Statellce, olbicnsis, italica, Fieberi, 

 and, in fact, the whole race of these dwarf-bearded ones. They 



