This Flowerdeluce hath diuers long and broad leaues, not stiffe, like all the other, but soft and greenish on the vpperside, and whitish vnderneath; among which rise vp sometimes seuerall small, short, slender stalkes, and sometimes but one, not aboue halfe a foote high, bearing at the top one flower a peece, somewhat like vnto a Flowerdeluce, consisting of nine leaues, whereof those three that stand vpright, are shorter and more closed together, then in other sorts of Flowerdeluces; the other three that fall downe, turne vp their ends a little, and those three, that in other Flowerdeluces doe couer them at the bottome, stand like the vpright leaues of other Flowerdeluces, but are parted into two ends, like vnto two small eares: the whole flower is of a faire blew, or pale skie colour in most, with a long stripe in the middle of each of the three falling leaues, and in some white, but more seldome: the roote is reasonable great, round and white, vnder the blackish coates wherewith it is couered, hauing many long thicke white rootes in stead of fibres, which make them seeme to be Asphodill rootes. The flower is very sweete. _Iris bulbosa Persica._ The Persian bulbous Flowerdeluce. This Persian Flowerdeluce is somewhat like vnto the former, both in roote and in leafe, but that the leaues are shorter and narrower, and the flower being much about the same fashion, is of a pale blew russetish colour, each of the three lower falling leaues are almost wholly of a browne purple colour, with a yellow spot in the middle of them: this as it is very rare, so it seldome beareth flowers with vs. The Place. The first groweth in many places of Spaine and Portugall, from whence I and others haue often had it for our Gardens, but by reason of the tendernesse thereof, it doth hardly endure the sharpnesse of our cold Winters, vnlesse it be carefully preserued. The other is said to come from Persia, and therefore it is so entituled, and is as tender to be kept as the other. The Time. The first flowreth most vsually not vntill May with vs, yet many times sooner: but in Ianuary and February, as Clusius saith, in the naturall places thereof. The other is as early oftentimes when it doth flower with vs. The Names. Because Clusius by good iudgement referreth the first to the greater kindes of Flowerdeluces, and placeth it in the fore ranke, calling it _Iris bulbosa latifolia prima_, that is, The first broad leafed Flowerdeluce, and all others doe the like, I haue (as you see) in the like manner put it before all the other, and keepe the same name. The Spaniards, as he saith, called it _Lirio espadanal_, and they of Corduba, _Lirios azules_. The other hath no other name then as it is in the title.