214 
The Garden Magazine, December, 1923 
make the plant of value for its mass effect. Indeed at its best 
it may be fairly covered with flowers. 
R ECALLING both japonica and tectorum in certain of its 
individual traits, yet in its entirety quite different from 
either, is the much less commonly seen Himalayan species, 
Iris Milesii. In winter this plant loses its foliage nearly as com¬ 
pletely as tectorum, but it makes up for it later in sending up 
great sheaves of foliage taller and more conspicuous than those 
of any other Evansia. The scapes remind one of japonica in 
that they bear their flowers in panicles. These, though three or 
four inches across and thus individually larger than those of the 
Eastern Asiatic species, are yet distinctly small for the big 
foliage and the tall stem. In color they are considerably darker 
and heavier in effect than japonica, being strangely mottled in 
two shades of pale and deep reddish purple. The dentate crest 
is yellow. 
This species is said to come from an altitude of six thousand 
to fourteen thousand feet and should therefore be reasonably 
hardy. It is not known to be excessively particular as to soil 
requirements and is not at all difficult to propagate either from 
offsets or from seeds. Yet for some reason it seems to be a rare 
plant among us, and quite difficult to procure. It has not been 
in my own garden long enough for me to learn whether it has not 
some unknown vagaries but, if so, I am not expecting them to 
be very formidable. There is one Pasadena garden, which I 
visit at times, where this species luxuriates, flowers abundantly, 
and has spread into an ample patch with a minimum of atten¬ 
tion. As the attendant circumstances do not appear unusual, 
there seems no reason to doubt that the same success can be 
attained elsewhere. 
Baker’s Iris Wattii has been considered a form of the last 
species by Dykes, but it has recently been brought into cultiva¬ 
tion in England and now seems to be altogether distinct. I 
have never seen but a dry rhizome or two, and am not aware 
that it has yet been grown in this country, but Sir Arthur Hort 
informs me that the curious bamboo-like stems bear flowers the 
year succeeding their formation much resembling those of 
japonica. The plant is said to require about the same treat¬ 
ment as the latter. 
Q UITE distinct from the other Evansias in habit and garden 
value, as well as in the geographical area which they nat- 
■—urally inhabit, are our two American species, I. cristata 
and I. lacustris. The latter form, the range of which is given by 
Gray (“Manual of Botany”) as the “gravelly shores of Lakes 
Huron and Michigan,” is not, so far as I have been able to learn, 
in commercial cultivation, and being so similar to cristata that 
the botanists themselves have had trouble deciding whether or 
no it may be merely a variety thereof, it may be dismissed with 
a few words. It is said to be an inhabitant of the sand dune 
region of Michigan, Indiana, and so on, in the immediate 
neighborhood of the Great Lakes, and due to this highly specia¬ 
lized habitat it is possible that it may not be quite so amenable 
to cultivation as the allied cristata. I have never yet, however, 
been able to obtain the plants necessary for making any sort of 
a personal test. 
Iris cristata, itself, although a very tiny species but a few 
inches in total height, is a thoroughly charming plant and very 
easy to grow. It is a native of the mountain regions of Ken¬ 
tucky and Tennessee, and perhaps neighboring states, but it is a 
much hardier plant than one might be led to expect, and seems 
equally at home in the gardens of New I lampshire and Maine, 
in the rock gardens of Michigan, or even here in California. It 
grows by stolons a little on the order of japonica, the tip of each 
stolon giving rise to an entire cluster of new shoots the season 
following so that in time it comes fairly to carpet any little 
shady corner where it has been established. In California at 
least it does not seem to like baking or too bright sunshine, so is a 
species for the sheltered part of the rock garden or a fern bed. 
The leaves, which in their ensiform outline and graceful manner 
of curving over remind one of japonica on a diminutive scale, are 
as a rule only six or eight inches long. There is some variation 
in the color of the flowers, but all are lovely. The general tone 
is some tint of lilac or violet, the falls as a rule being a trifle 
darker than the standards, and adorned with a conspicuous 
yellow or orange signal patch edged first with white and then 
with deep lilac. In my strain, which came from the mountains 
of Kentucky, the falls are light lavender violet, the spotting 
pleroma violet toning almost to haematoxylin violet next the 
white. The signal patch is light cadmium passing into aniline 
yellow. A single segment of this gem of a flower is a study in 
itself. 
Iris gracilipes, a delicate little Iris living in “open glades in 
cool wocds in Japan,” differs from all of the previously noted 
species in the possession of narrow grassy foliage and exceedingly 
slender rhizomes which are often not altogether easy to handle 
in common cultivation. Dykes calls it “one of the most dainty 
of all Irises.” It is in fact a very elfin of the genus. The leaves 
attain a height of nine to twelve inches. The stems are about 
the same and bear rather fugitive flowers of a pale lilac, marked 
with deeper tinting toward the base, their throats whitish, and 
showing a yellowish crest “flecked with gold.” The plant is 
such a frail little thing and again those miserable slugs so ex¬ 
ceeding fond of it, that I am having considerable trouble to 
effect its full establishment in my hot garden, even on the shady 
side. In the cooler climate of England the plant is said not to 
like full shade, but to do best facing west “in a loose, rich vege¬ 
table soil, in much the same conditions as those in which prim¬ 
roses thrive.” It is certainly an Iris worth a great deal of 
effort to suit its needs. 
It appears to be a little doubtful whether I. speculatrix, the 
other grassy-leaved species usually included in the group, is 
really an Evansia. Although it comes from no more remote a 
region than the neighborhood of Hongkong, it is exceedingly 
rare in Occidental gardens, and few Iris growers even among 
the specialists have so much as seen a plant, let alone a flower. 
Little is known as to its probable garden value or its cultural 
requirements, but as it has been reported to do rather well in 
the south of France, it would probably be found just as 
adaptable to southern California as some of its sister species, 
even if not to the harsher sections of the country. It is much to 
be hoped that some day it can be introduced and given a thor¬ 
ough opportunity to prove itself, and that perhaps it may turn 
out more ready to respond to the touch of the hybridizer’s hand 
than the other species have hitherto been. 
W ITH so much beauty and diversity prevailing among 
the species of an apparently closely related and natural 
group, a logical reaction of the grower who admires them is to 
essay their intercrossing, with a view to secure still greater 
variation, and in the end combinations of characters in selected 
offspring which would widen the garden possibilities of the 
group. No doubt this interpollination has been resorted to, 
both by professional and amateur specialists, a great many more 
times than we find published record; but, for some mysterious 
reason, the Evansias possess an intense repugnance to pollen not 
their own, and effective results have been astonishingly meager. 
Iris japonica seems curiously averse even to its own pollen, 
at least under the conditions of cultivation, and during 
many attempts I have never been successful in obtaining more 
than a single capsule of seed, this one capsule, sad to say, being 
flicked off by the skirt of a passing visitor and lost forever. I. 
tectorum, the white form as well as the typical, sets seed with 
readiness under the influence of its own pollen. So does I. Mil¬ 
esii. But tectorum and Milesii are not known ever to have been 
successfully combined, nor either of them with japonica, though 
it may be that there has been some work done along this line in 
France of which we on this side of the water are unaware. 
There seems to be no hybrid extant of cristata or gracilipes; 
speculatrix has probably not been tried, barring some unknown 
attempt by the ever indefatigable Sir Michael Foster. In fact 
