Description
(syn. Iris unguicularis cretensis)
A dwarf plant with short, narrow leaves, 1-3 mm wide, and many, small, very strikingly coloured flowers of violet and lavender over a white ground, with an orange-yellow stripe in the centre of the falls, and darker standards. One example only is illustrated, there is a wide colour variation within the species.
This superb colour combination would be excellent on its own, but this has the added advantage of flowering from February onwards, when such colour is doubly welcome.
Sharply drained soil in full sun, and excellent at the base of a south-facing wall.
This cultivated stock is traceable to the Greek Island of Karpathos in the Dodecanese, between Crete and Rhodes.
