Iris hartwegii

Hartweg's iris

Family: Iridaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Hartweg's iris is a California native perennial found in Sierra Nevada mountain habitats at elevations of 900 to 2,400 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces lavender to purple flowers with distinctive broad sepals 4 to 7 centimeters long and elegant, narrowly elliptic petals. Growing with unbranched stems up to 30 centimeters tall emerging from a thick rhizome 3 to 10 millimeters in diameter, it develops basal leaves 3 to 14 millimeters wide. Its leaves include 1 to 4 cauline leaves that are bract-like or similar to the basal leaves, with an inflorescence typically bearing 2 to 3 flowers. The flower's perianth tube is barrel-shaped, with style branches 31 to 45 millimeters long featuring distinctive triangular stigmas.

California counties: San Bernardino, El Dorado, Tulare, Amador, Butte, Nevada, Tuolumne, Placer, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Del Norte, Plumas, Yuba, Sierra, Mono, Mendocino, Kern, Siskiyou, Riverside, Alpine, Calaveras, Shasta, Lake, Tehama, Santa Clara, Humboldt, Ventura

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.