In many garden landscapes, a plant with sword-shaped leaves is often planted, their flowers are wide, the petals are spread out like the wings of a butterfly, and the flower color is a rare blue-purple color. Because the leaves are similar to orchids, many people mistakenly think that this is an orchid, and admire the orchid for its real leather and can grow so well in the soil of the garden. In fact, this is not an orchid, but a plant called iris.
Iris is a perennial herbaceous plant in the genus Iris in the family Iris that grows mostly on sunny woodland edges and river banks. They prefer warm, humid environments and can tolerate a certain cold, because they are highly adaptable and are found throughout the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
There are hundreds of species of iris in the wild, and there are hundreds of species of iris around the world, and their flowers are colorful and distinctive, but they share many common characteristics.
Depending on the variety, the rhizome of the iris is divided into tubers and bulbs, and the thick rhizomes are buried in the ground, which makes the leaves appear to grow directly from the ground.
The narrow sword-shaped leaves are densely clustered, because the leaves resemble the tail of an iris, which were named iris by the ancients on the mainland.
The flowers of the iris are very distinctive. The petals grow in two circles, three in the inner circle and three in the outer circle. Two circles of petals intersect each other to form the shape of a six-pointed star.
The petals that grow in the outer circle are larger, darker, and slightly drooping, called hanging petals.
The three petals in the inner circle are relatively small and grow diagonally upwards, like small flags that flutter in the wind, called flag petals. The pistils of the iris are wrapped in three flag petals, while the stamens are at the base of the hanging petals, which is also the innermost part of the flower center.
Some of the hanging petals have intricate and dazzling patterns and comb-like protrusions or fringed hair, which look very special. This is where the plants themselves reproduce, give the insects that come to pollinate a place to stay, and guide them to find nectar. These characteristics are an important basis for florists to distinguish iris species. Although we can't tell the species, we can also rely on it to distinguish iris from other flowers.
Each flower blooms for about a week, but the buds open one after the other, allowing the iris to bloom from April to October. Such beautiful and charming flowers with a long flowering period are naturally very popular with people.
Countless horticulturists continue to collect iris plants from all over the world for cross-breeding. New varieties are constantly emerging, and not only do many flower lovers not be able to tell them apart, but even horticulturists who cultivate them with their own hands have difficulty identifying all of them.
Today, how to distinguish the varieties of iris has become a happy and annoying problem.