IRIS pratensis angustifolia, folio foetido. _Bauh. Pin. 32._

The greater blue Flower-de-luce with narrow leaves. _Park. Parad. p.
184._

[Illustration: 58]

Some plants afford so little diversity of character, that an expressive
name can scarcely be assigned them; such is the present plant, or
LINNÆUS would not have given it the inexpressive name of
_spuria_, nor we have adopted it.

This species is distinguished by the narrowness of its leaves, which
emit a disagreeable smell when bruised, by the colour of its flowers,
which are of a fine rich purple inclining to blue, and by its hexangular
germen.

It is a native of Germany, where, as Professor JACQUIN informs
us, it grows in wet meadows; is a hardy perennial, thrives in our
gardens in almost any soil or situation, flowers in June, and is
propagated by parting its roots in Autumn.




[59]

~Mesembryanthemum bicolorum. Two-Coloured Fig-Marigold.~