In 1949 John C Wister, the first president of the American Iris Society suggested that it was Dykes that inspired Arthur to start breeding irises by involving him in the controversy about the authenticity of the supposed species amoena, plicata, neglecta and squalens . It was Phyllis, daughter of his brother Laurence who helped him, and ‘discovered’ Dominion. “I was at that time so engrossed in my aim of raising a crimson iris that I suppose any one not ‘red’ received scant attention. It was my little niece who really discovered it – confidently affirming one day that it was the best iris I had.” Elsewhere he refers to Phyllis, at age 5 being his “first and only assistant, and to her unerring judgement in selection no less than her sage advice and encouragement.” Dominion was deep purple, had a stout stiff stalk, a large flowerof great substance, flaring almost horizontal velvety falls and wonderful texture.Nurseryman R. W. Wallace (who had just introduced Foster’s seedlings) came to see it. “He also thought it was the finest iris in the world and said so in his catalog,and to be sure that his customers would be properly impressed, he asked for it in 1917 notthe usual 4 or 5 shillings, but 5 pounds! [probably about £100 today]

“It was this Iris, plus those I have just mentioned, that precipitated the Iris furore in Europe, and the flood of introductions from Bliss, Perry, Vilmorin, Millet, Denis and Cayeux and others in the decade 1920 to 1930”. (JC Wister: A Little Iris History; AIS Bulletin 1949).

In fact he introduced more than 150 cultivars. The best known of these was of course ‘Dominion’ and irises of the Dominion Race will be found in the genealogy of many newer cultivars. The irises won many awards, including a silver cup in 1922, possibly for ‘Citronella’, a striking variagata. As irises have developed over the last 80 odd years, many of the older cultivars have been lost, even though they were instrumental in the development of the iris as it is today. For many years older varieties were discarded as newer, larger flowered varieties were developed. There are many people now who prefer the older more delicately flowered irises which often stand up better to poor weather.

In 1930 P Murrell wrote the editorial for the Iris Society yearbook. He states: “Let us consider very briefly what Bliss has actually done. He gave us, in his original Dominion race, irises which were something definitely new and better, a complete breakaway from the old varieties and of which Dominion itself set a standard of quality for everything else which has been raised since it appeared. Not only this. These new varieties provided new material for other raisers to work on, and to which many of them are indebted for their own achievements”. “I am asking the editor to publish my note as a small tribute to this modest and retiring English gentleman, who, working with few facilities in a remote corner of Devon, has accomplished so much. He is the master in whose footsteps we are all following”. He was awarded the Foster Memorial Plaque in 1930.

Another quote suggests that he became quite eccentric: “He was then (1929) in his seventieth year, still tearing around the countryside on a motor bicycle, though at some peril as he was very deaf. He was living in the utmost disorder in a crowded little cottage on the river Morwell, his main room littered with the apparatus of a curve-calculating machine on which he was working, and with the paraphernalia of living. He had little regard for his clothes, the casual condition of which has prevented my wife from further saying I was the worst dressed gardener she has ever seen. Of course Mr Bliss was a bachelor. His garden and particularly his records were, however, models of neatness and of meticulous care.” (Sydney B Mitchell Iris Society Yearbook 1947) Even in 1919 he could have been described as unconventional: “Mr Bliss was lame from a sprained ankle and very deaf, and the two made him appear much older than he was. He lived, apparently, in an atmosphere of confusion. His ‘office’ in the little inn where he lived, was a grand piano piled high with notebooks of records of his crosses, and his ‘garden’ was a rectangle 100 by 200 feet., filled ….. with his irises without apparently space to put a foot down, no paths, no space even between rows”. “Mr Bliss was a delightful host, and the little valley of the Tamar River seemed to me just delightful and just unbelievably beautiful. It was not only beautiful but it supplied strawberries and Devonshire cream such as I have never seen again.” (JC Wister; Iris Society Yearbook 1946)

He considered writing a book, and had got as far as scoping it out by 1930. In a letter to Mr John Beauchamp dated 26^th June 1930 he says:

“The doctor tells that it is not serious now but would be if I went on and that I must rest for at least six months and thereafter not work more than six or eight hours a day (I have been working fourteen hours a day for two years). I can do such work as writing even now and during the winter I did think about the book and got so far as to plan out its scope. I was rather appalled at the amount of work it will entail in some ways as I shall have to collect and coordinate my results in Daffodils and Iris (I have done so for Gladioli as it was necessary for an article I wrote for the Gardener’s Chronicle about 1915).” He never got to complete the book.

In another letter in March 1914, in which he was generally discussing family history with his distant cousin Christine Burrows, he tells her a little of himself: “ I left Oxford 2 or 3 years before the rest of the family, and going out to New Zealand [1881-89] and subsequently to South Africa. I am now engaged – in a more or less amateur way – in plant breeding, raising new varieties of flowers, which seems a most appropriate occupation for one with our motto ‘Quod Serveres Metes’ [As you sow, so shall you reap]”

He died of pneumonia in 1931. In his obituary Mr Eden Phillpotts for the Times writes in 1931: “A very rare and distinguished personality is lost in the passing of Arthur John Bliss. In the full tide of his original work, and he leaves not only horticulture the poorer, but countless friends who loved him for himself alone. Bliss was a unique spirit and, despite his affliction of great deafness, preserved a steadfast cheerfulness and contentment, never allowing his affliction to come between those he esteemed and willed to pleasure or instruct.”