FIELD ID CHARACTERISTICS:
Typical iris appearance with showy blue or purple flowers. Roots and seeds are somewhat toxic if eaten.
Description: Perennial herb reaching 1 m. This plant is colonial, spreading by rhizomes.
Leaves: Simple and entire with acute tips; slightly curved from base to tip. Leaves pale blue-green, up to 1 m tall and 3 cm wide and clasping at the base.
Flowers/Fruit: Typical showy, iris flower; bluish-purple with 3 petals and 3 upwardly curved sepals. Yellow markings present on petals. Elongated seed capsules are 5 to 8 cm long. Blooms April/May; fruits July to September.
Habit and Range: Margins of streams and ponds, freshwater marshes, swamps, wet pine flats, ditches. Most common in the Coastal Plain and rare in the eastern Piedmont.
COMMON CONFUSIONS:
Emerging irises can be confused with emerging Typha spp. (cattail), but emerging Typha leaves are bunched in a cylindrical cluster rather than fan-like. Iris leaves could also be confused with Lachnanthes caroliniana (redroot), which has fleshy shorter leaves, thin, red roots, and wooly flowering heads.
Click here to view Typha latifolia.
Click here to view Typha angustifolia.
Click here to view Typha domingensis.
Click here to view Lachnanthes caroliniana.
Link to side-by-side comparisons page
