Today's plant is a pacific coast hybrid iris. This is the first one to bloom for me this year. The PCH collection is a grand varicolored array of irises bred from several California and Oregon native species. They are quite a bit shorter and smaller than most garden irises, being 10 to 15 inches tall, and earlier blooming. I have collected several, but killed some, and most have not bloomed yet. This one seems to get its color primarily from the golden iris, I. innominata, which I have never seen in the wild, and its form from the Oregon iris, I. tenax, which, being blue, I probably never distinguished from any other small blue iris, calling them all Douglas iris, often incorrectly.
Iris tenax was an important source of raw material for netmaking and basketry for the west coast indigenous people. I was taught that only the one middle fiber from each leaf was used. Since I don't need dependable nets for fishing, that is too labor-intensive for me, so I have not used leaves of native iris in my basketry. I guess I could try the whole leaves of all the native irises, since my needs are not so stringent.
Its roots, and those of most small north american iris, are toxic and medicinally equivalent to I. missouriensis, which was traditionally used for toothache and a number of other things. I have no direct experience with it.
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