Iris tenuissima

Iris

Family: Iridaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Iris is a California native perennial found in open grasslands and oak woodlands at elevations of 10 to 500 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces delicate lavender to purple flowers with large, widely oblanceolate sepals 5 to 7 centimeters long. Growing with slender unbranched stems 10 to 25 centimeters tall, it emerges from a thin rhizome 2 to 5 millimeters in diameter. Its basal leaves are narrow, 3 to 8 millimeters wide, with 1 to 4 cauline leaves that are bract-like or similar to the basal leaves. The flowers feature a distinctive perianth tube 30 to 58 millimeters long that narrows at the base and widens dramatically at the mid-throat.

California counties: Shasta, Trinity, Humboldt, Plumas, Siskiyou, Tehama, Glenn, Butte, Placer, Lake, Colusa, Mendocino, Del Norte, Yuba, Lassen

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