In looking thru our “Iris Lover’s Catalog” for 
1930, we find that of the 100 Best Iris for that year, 
only sixteen remain in our First Hundred of today.* 
Such amazing progress has been made in six short 
years that this might well be called a “golden age” 
in the development of the iris. Especially is this 
true in the case of the yellows (long a backward 
color section). Where even so recently as 1930, the 
best available in this class were Aliquippa, Chasseur, 
Coronation, Nebraska, Primrose, and Prairie Gold, we 
have today recent acquisitions two or three times 
as large and incomparably more beautiful. 
One of the loveliest of the new yellows is Eclador, 
from the magic hand of Cayeux. Unrivalled in 
grace and symmetry, this superb iris possesses a uni¬ 
form color tone of crystalline canary yellow, with 
just a touch of golden-brown venation at the haft, 
reminding one of the soft brown lines in the throats 
of waxy yellow “lady-slippers”. No yellow iris 
surpasses Eclador in exquisiteness of sheen, its tex¬ 
*E1 Capitan, Sensation, Baldwin, Sir Michael, Dolly Madison, 
Midgard, Trostringer, Frieda Mohr, Grace Sturtevant, Magenta, 
Mrs. Valery West, Los Angeles, Purissima, San Francisco, Wm. 
Mohr, Dorothy Dietz. 
ture being of the fine type known as “enameled”. 
Like several of the yellows its standards display a 
charming touch of fluting. 
Deepest of all yellow iris is California Gold, most 
easily described as a golden Grace Sturtevant with 
closed standards. Its color is very rich and lustrous, 
having a slight brassy overcast which in no wise 
detracts. In this same register is our own Lucrezia 
Bori, larger flowered and with a most distinctive 
ruffling. An earlier blooming giant is Happy Days, 
a bit less distinguished in form than the three pre¬ 
ceding yellows, but probably destined, from its 
all-around quality, to be unexcelled in popularity. 
We take a great deal of delight in Phebus with its 
precise oval form, excellent substance, large number 
of blooms to the stalk, and soft tone of yellow. 
Valuable for border work where its exceptional 
height can be used in the background against shrubs 
is the subdued bronze-yellow, Alta California. Two 
fine standard sorts are Pluie D'Or and Coronation, 
described in detail on page 24. . . . Generous plant¬ 
ings of any of these fine yellows produce the effect 
of warm, sunlit patches in any iris garden, freshen¬ 
ing up the blues, and adding life to all the iris colors. 
i Il ls Pel 
sett a 
People whose hobbies run to the collecting of 
first editions, antique furniture, old china, coins, 
arrowheads, guns, or the thousand and one things 
from match boxes to oil paintings which appeal to 
the “collector’s instinct”, realize that interesting 
variation is the basis of the collection value of any 
type of object. Anything which does not exist in 
many interesting forms can hardly be “collected”. 
Stamps, inanimate as they are, are the most com¬ 
mon of all collected things because of their extra¬ 
ordinary variation in geographic and historical in¬ 
terest and significance. Flowers, while a compara¬ 
tively recent object of collectors’ zeal, are in many 
ways a collection object par excellence. Instead of 
being merely lifeless representations of beauty on 
paper or canvas, they are living beauty itself; and 
if the flower chosen for collection happens to be 
the iris, it is one which manifests remarkable varia¬ 
tion in personality. We have everything from 
handsome, regal reds, gay swashbuckling variegatas, 
yellows, warm and cheering as spring sunshine, to 
immaculate virginal whites, winsome, fragile pinks, 
and blues tranquil or profound. ... No one not 
familiar with the modern iris can imagine the 
individuality bred into this flower. Though many 
people use iris extensively for massed landscape 
plantings, for which they also are ideal, many other 
flower lovers find possession of AN IRIS COLLEC¬ 
TION of 25, 30, 100 or more varieties and adding 
to it, a hobby replete with never-ending thrills. 
On the two pages preceding we have illustrated 
several distinct iris personalities: Cydnus, bright 
velvety blue with an orchid-like veining and inter¬ 
esting margin; Euphony, a captivating gem, curled 
and frilled — a rich gold with a lustre of metallic 
lavender on the falls; exotic Wm. Mohr, one of the 
landmarks of iris development — a variety always 
discussed when one finds iris fans “exchanging 
notes”; giant Paulette, a blue of enamelled texture - 
so large that a single fall measures 3across (more 
than the width of this column); Legend, famous pur¬ 
ple, type of the perfect candelabrum branching. These 
outstanding iris are all described more completely 
in their respective color classes. 
12 
