78 
IRIS PERSIC A. 
The flowers, again, besides being beautiful in themselves, their hue being of a 
delicate French white, with a bluish tinge, and having a large, irregular, violet- 
purple blotch in each outer petal, which is of a very rich, velvety nature, and is 
surrounded by a deep orange tint, while the extremities of those petals are finely 
undulated, — exhale a very powerful fragrance, which is like that of violets, but 
rather stronger. 
Beyond this, however, the species is deserving of notice, as requiring no culture, 
but simply planting in a loamy soil ; and it propagates itself freely by natural 
offsets. 
With such merits, then, we may safely assume that, wherever our Magazine is 
perused, it will soon become an object of desire and culture. It can be conveniently 
grown in beds in the flower-garden, in clumps about the pleasure-grounds, round 
the base of trees or lawns that have a cleared space beneath them, in the borders 
fronting greenhouses or conservatories, or in any position that is open to the sun, 
and near a walk that is much used in early spring. 
It can still, likewise, be kept in pots, to any extent, both for forcing, and for 
adorning the greenhouse at its natural period of flowering. When it has been thus 
used, it should be transferred to the borders as soon as it has ceased to bloom. The 
bulbs can be taken up in the summer, after the leaves have decayed, and replanted 
in October or November. Or they may be left constantly in the ground, and 
be separated every alternate year. 
