ON IRISES. 



133 



Many a plant may be found growing wild in a spot and under 

 conditions which are not those for which it is really adapted. 

 Many a plant has been driven by stress of fortune from its 

 proper place, and may be found, with its back against the wall, 

 so to speak, fighting against adverse circumstances, and often 

 maintaining with difficulty the very barest existence. Still such 

 plants are, on the whole, exceptions, not the rule ; and we may 

 safely take as the gardener's guide the maxim : If we want a 

 plant to seem at home, try and make for it a home like that in 

 which it was found. 



In many cases the plant itself, by its very features, will give 

 you directions as to how you ought to treat it. This is at least 

 often the case with Irises. Let me in illustration of this call 

 your attention to the Iris which I now hold in my hand, and 

 which belongs to a group of Irises of which the well-known 

 I. gcrmanica may perhaps be taken as the type [specimen 

 shown]. Look at the broad swordlike, ensiform leaves, protected 

 on the one side and on the other by a fairly thick cuticle. This 

 tells us that the plant does not fear the sunlight, but can 

 probably enjoy with profit the sun's directest rays. Look at 

 these long, simple, scanty roots. Their simple, cord-like form 

 and their fewness tell us that the plant used them to gather in 

 ordinary nourishment, and not to suck up large and frequent 

 draughts of water. And this thick underground stem or 

 rhizome, in which a large store of elaborated food can be 

 garnered, and in which a supply of water can be held, tell us 

 the same tale. Obviously this plant is one which does not seek 

 damp shady places, but loves the full light of the sun, which is 

 accustomed to a not too generous soil, and which, thanks to its 

 fleshy rhizome and sturdy leaves, is prepared to meet periods of 

 not inconsiderable drought. Its characters suggest that it is at 

 home on some sunlit rocky bank or hill-side, where its roots 

 can run about in somewhat dry and not too fertile loam. And 

 it is in some such spots in the south of Europe and elsewhere 

 that we find it growing wild. 



It may possibly strike some of my hearers as strange that 

 I should talk of Irises at all as growing by preference in dry, 

 sunny places, for it is a very common opinion that all Irises 

 need a damp, even if not a shady situation. This opinion is the 

 result of the wrong application of a most admirable principle, 



b 2 



