Old-Fashioned Iris

My favorite iris is always the one I'm currently looking at. This variety is from Massachusetts, my mother's or my aunt's garden, I no longer remember, but it is the iris of my growing up. The perfume is so intense, an immediate transport to my childhood backyard, to the flagstone terrace bordered with a few hardy plants. Those purple petals are deepest velvet, and the subtle color shifts could break your heart with their beauty. I thought I'd lost this one, but it turned up under the plum tree out back.