Irises - Historic Iris Preservation Society

VARIETIES OF I. PERSICA 19
its best has flowers of white and sea-green, with a brownpurple
patch on the blade of the falls. It has been in cultivation
in England for some centuries, but is
apparently
becoming rarer owing to the fact that it is not a strong
grower.
In light, sandy soil it is most disappointing, but would
probably do better in heavy loam. Even then it would
need to be kept dry and well ripened in summer. The
chief difficulty with regard to it
probably
that the trade supplies are grown in heavy
lies in the fact
soil and lose all
their roots when torn up for sale. The result is that newly
purchased bulbs are weakly, and often exhaust themselves
by attempting to flower in their first season. This should
be discouraged by removing the bud, if it is hoped to
establish the plant. It will then probably form a stronger
bulb for the following year, together with an offset
or
two.
Besides the type there are at least two varieties which
are well worth growing and which appear to have better
constitutions, namely,
/. Tauri from the Cilician Taurus
and 7. Heldreichii (or stenophylla) from a somewhat lower
elevation in the same neighbourhood.
7. Tauri has rather
small but brilliant flowers of deep purple lined with gold,
while those of 7. Heldreichii are a combination of blueblack
blotches on a grey-blue ground.
Besides these there are other colour forms of 7. persica
that are much more rarely seen in cultivation. A variety,
purpurea, is wholly of a warm claret-purple colour. One
called galatica, from the region in which it is
found, has
flowers of pale, dingy yellow, tipped with brown-purple,
and another with large flowers of silver-grey flushed and