Kathleen on the Oregon coast wrote >A few weeks ago, someone mentioned a non-flowering iris. I took the >time today to go measure the leaves on a clump of Iris I have that >has also never flowered for me. Would the person who wrote about it >contact me so we can compare notes? > >I have had this plant for more than 10 years; it came with a label >indicating it was Iris tenax, but now that I know that species >better, I know the leaves are too long, and the leaf color is too gray. > >In this mystery iris clump, Individual leaves are at their largest 4 >mm wide and 60-62 cm long. The clump is 25 cm across, and the foliage >color is light greenish gray. In my yard, zone 8, it grows in sandy >silt, in a bed that gets no summer water and full sun. Are the leaves 4 mm wide? Other than that, the foliage description reminds me of Iris munzii, a member of the same section (Pacific Coast irises) but from California. It has grayish leaves that are broad for a PCI (probably up to 4 cm) and quite long and rather erect. I grew it for a while (until it froze to death -- it has the reputation of being the most tender of the section) and it never flowered here in the Oregon Cascade foothills. The flowers are supposed to be a beautiful shade of blue, and this species has been widely used in breeding Pacific Coast iris hybrids. Perhaps Kathleen's plant is a hybrid seedling from a garden where I. tenax was growing with this species or with hybrids related to it. I don't know why it would survive more than 10 years without flowering, unless it needs more heat to initiate flowering -- it won't get much where Kathleen lives. The only irises I know of that would actually have leaves only 4 mm wide and that long are I. filifolia and I. tingitana, which come from the western Mediterranean, but they are bulbous and don't really form "clumps" like the rhizomatous to fibrous-rooted PCIs do. I grow these in the bulb frame, where they have flowered. Jane McGary Northwestern Oregon, USA