Irises - Historic Iris Preservation Society

A BEAUTIFUL IRIS 71
obtained, for there are many forms that masquerade under
the name of /. histrioides, but none is so good as this.
Early in February the fat buds should appear almost as
soon as the horny tips of the leaves pierce the soil. They
quickly open and show their splendours of light
and dark
blue, splashed with white at the throat. /. Krelagei is another
Iris, which at its best has magnificent flowers of crimson
velvet, but there are Krelageis and Krelageis, and the poorest
have small flowers of a washy purple and are hardly worth
cultivating.
Almost before /. alata has sent up its last flower, some
small but brilliantly coloured relatives should be ready to
succeed it.
It is hard indeed to describe the colour scheme
of /. persica. Even with the help of the most elaborate
colour charts we are entirely baffled. Imagine a pearly
white flower washed over with turquoise-blue and sea-green
laid on unevenly ; give it a blotch of warm purple-brown
on the blade of the falls and a central orange stripe, and you
will have some faint idea of the beauties of I. persica. It
was grown in England three hundred years ago,
its constitution is not strong or there is
something
but either
in its
cultivation that we do not understand, for it seems to get
rarer instead of more common, and it is seldom that one
sees /. persica in the form of a vigorous colony. Wretched
specimens appear in tiny pots at shows from time to time,
but the flowers are then undersized and puny, and attract
but little attention.
Those who cannot succeed with persica itself should
try I. Heldreichii, which is sometimes called stenophylla,
though its leaves are scarcely narrower than those of
persica itself. Its large flowers are a combination of pale