The Yellow Iris with its lily flowers and sword-like leaves is found in
summer-time by the side of ditches, and marshes, and ponds.
In the Iris the petals and the sepals are almost the same colour. The
flower has a short yellow tube which folds back at the mouth into three
broad, handsome yellow sepals, beautifully marked with deep orange
streaks.
Between each of these sepals stands a small pale yellow petal.
Rising from the centre of the flower are what look like other three pale
yellow petals, with fringed ends which curl upward. These are really
three branches of the slender column which rises from the seed-vessel,
and they bend backwards over each sepal. Half hidden under each of these
fringed petals, you can see the dark purple head of a stamen, closely
pressed against the broad yellow sepal.
The yellow flower-tube stands above the seed-vessel. This seed-vessel
becomes very large in autumn, and it bursts lengthways into three parts,
showing rows of dark brown seeds tightly packed together inside.
Before the flower opens, the Iris is enclosed in a green sheath.
The leaves are sword-shaped, with long lines running from base to tip.
They are smooth, and in colour they are a dim green.