The Garden Magazine, December, 1923 
211 
as faithful soldiers, waiting to give at the right moment that 
dominant touch of blue which, with the permanent masses of 
Agathea, Ageratum, Blue Flax, Salvia azurea, Delphinium 
belladonna, tall Iris stylosa, and delicate blue shades of Lupins, 
will make you all soft and restful to the eye, when the brilliant 
sun of a California spring resigns one to pulling out all the flow¬ 
ers of more vivid coloring before they have quite finished their 
day of bloom. 
G REETING my tiny brook, my little Barranca! 1 thought 
I should find you looking very glum without your Irises, in 
this one short season of all the year, when Iris does not bloom in 
California; but I must say, that your great variety of sprightly 
Grasses give style, and the deep green covering of Ampelopsis 
sempervirens, creeping around the stones along the winding 
banks, make you quite an attractive baby waterway. 
The Unguicularis group will soon appear as a forerunner of 
the long succession of Irises which flourish marvellously in this 
climate. First, will come our dainty little Chinese visitor, 
Friambretta, whose orchid-like bloom is with us in the coldest 
weeks of winter; then the glossy evergreen blades of I. stylosa 
will send up their tall stalks heavily laden with bloom which lasts 
until later in the season, when the Dutch and Spanish Irises 
appear, together with the lovely Morea iridoides, that fairy-like 
Bower so closely resembling the Iris. 
Really, Little Barranca, I quite like the exotic touch that I 
gave you last year by putting broad-leafed shadows along your 
borders, and I hope you do not object to the experiment I am 
trying on you. I could not get it out of my mind that even a 
little waterway in California should have an effect similar to 
the great arroyos, where twisting, bending Sycamores stand 
guard. I imagined that the Japanese Aralia paprifera has much 
the same character of leaf and style of growth as our own Syca¬ 
mores, so I have introduced it along my waterway to simulate the 
larger trees. 1 see a picture of large-leafed shadows on the 
grass and twisted, bending trunks on guard, suggesting in minia¬ 
ture, Dame Nature’s way with a little stream. In this land of 
magic growth, in one more year I shall know if my dream comes 
true. 
But we must stop praising ourselves, Little Garden, and get 
about earning the right to indulge this gentle failing at odd 
times! 
A HOBBY IN CRESTED IRISES 
S. STILLMAN BERRY 
A Dainty Group of Elfin-like Flowers Whose Fugitive 
Beauty and Cultural Interest Fascinate the Fancier 
Wjjf-NJANY years ago, more than a hundred of them to be 
more explicit, an English gentleman bearing the name 
Thomas Evans introduced into Britain a number of 
T pp PplI Oriental plants. Among them was a certain delicate 
plant of Irid affiliation which impressed the botanist Salisbury 
as so distinct from all groups of the family previously known 
that he made it the type of a new botanical genus, which he 
named Evansia in honor of the introducer, while he called the 
species chinensis, either unaware that it had already been given 
another name, or else mayhap choosing to ignore that fact. 
Modern botanists do not recognize the generic distinctness of 
this class of plants from others which are now ranked together 
in the one genus Iris, and for this particular species they prefer 
to use the older name japonica. But regardless of such techni¬ 
cal detail, Evansia still survives as the group name of a little 
assemblage of dainty Iris species, which, by reason of a striking 
character which they possess in common, (i. e. a curiously 
formed ridge or crest along the basal part of the fall in the place 
of the more familiar throat-beard) are likewise known as Crested 
Irises. 
The flowers, generally rather small as Irises go, are further 
characterized by their rather flattened outline, bizarre yet alto¬ 
gether delicate markings, and a tendency to an eccentric fring¬ 
ing of the phlanges of the style branches and perianth segments; 
while the foliage, except in the instance of two species only, is 
broadly sword-shaped, each leaf tapering to a sharp point, so 
that Evansias growing in the garden have an entirely distinct 
aspect and are readily picked out by even the novice, once their 
salient features are fairly understood. 
By their behavior under cultivation the Evansias contrive to 
set themselves apart almost as strikingly as by their botanical 
features. A number of the species are quite tender, but several 
are nevertheless sufficiently hardy so that there need be few 
gardens in the entire United States without one or more of them 
growing in fair perfection. Some have blossoms so fugacious, 
and others stems so short, that as cut flowers they must be used 
with discrimination, but in the open these qualities are happily 
so related to other characteristics as to seem but part and parcel 
of their woodland charm. All Evansias have a certain wild and 
airy look, and the majority attain their most lovely effects when 
grown so that the quaint outlines of stem, leaf, and flower be¬ 
come emphasized rather than the mere color effect. 
The type species of the group, and in many respects one of the 
most interesting is Iris japonica, a native of Japan and China. 
In the former country it must be a species of some abundance, 
for before the present prohibitions of Quarantine 37 went into 
effect this was one of the Irises which in one or another of its 
forms was very likely to be had if a traveling friend was asked to 
send or bring back rhizomes of such wild Irises as he happened 
to see. Sometimes a good form of the species would be sent, but 
on the other hand one would occasionally receive a stubborn 
little pJant which would grow along in its own way more or less, 
and then when at rare intervals it chose to flower the blossoms 
were far from the airy, floating, butterfly-like creations of I ris ja¬ 
ponica at its best. It is possible that some day we shall find that 
there is enough natural variation in this speciesto yield us a truly 
hardy form; but those now in cultivation are evidently but poorly 
adapted to withstand temperatures very far below the freezing 
point, and pot or greenhouse culture is the only hope of Northern 
gardeners if they are to enjoy these truly lovely things. 
In the Gulf States, perhaps, and certainly in the milder sec¬ 
tions of our Pacific coastal area, this species grows and flowers 
luxuriantly with a near minimum of attention and trouble. 
In southern California the stems begin to push up through the 
sheaves of broad foliage in late December or January. By 
February the flowers are opening. There is soon a fine arched 
panicle of them, and although each individual flower is fugitive, 
enduring only a day or two, they appear here and there over the 
many-branched stem in a constant succession, the display of a 
single panicle being thus prolonged through many weeks. If 
