16 June 2024

Yellow flag iris

Look out for yellow flag or wild iris, our only native iris species with large dramatic showy yellow flowers with three wide downward-pointing petals and three narrow smaller upward-pointing petals. They grow on tall stalks up to a metre high surrounded by pale green, wide, firm, sword or strap like leaves. It grows in wet fields, marshes and along watercourses. Rhizomes or underground stems creep underground forming clumps. The flowers are full of nectar available only to bumblebees and larger hoverflies who can reach down. Also called flaggers, it is one of the positive flowers in ACRES, increasing scores and payments. It is part of our native Irish biodiversity.