If you want to identify wild plants and animals, you've got to have good keys, descriptions, drawings, maps and reference photographs.

   It helps to remember that every population has spent hundreds or thousands of generations adapting to the conditions of its own local habitat. Its individuals can often be distinguished from close relatives (even those belonging to the same species) living farther away. Also, any one individual may not be typical of the larger population.

   Keys used to identify the eleven PCI species are all based on one put together by Lee Lenz in his report "A Revision of the Pacific Coast Iris". Recognition is helped by the fact that most species fall into one of two groups, according to a couple of easily seen features. The three species outside these groups can be identified by their own special characteristics.

   Lenz's report includes an evaluation of each character used to distinguish the different species. Knowledge of where the plant lives helps narrow the choices. Flower color is usually helpful, as long as you keep in mind that most species have several color varieties, and occasionally one shows a full range from white, cream and yellow to violet, lavender and deep purple.

   An especially helpful series of drawings, showing the key features of each PCI species, illustrates Victor A. Cohen's "Guide to the Pacific Coast Irises". These drawings have been adapted to the description of each species found on the following pages. The two most helpful features he shows are the floral tube length and the open or closed postion of the spathes.

1. Floral (perianth) tube length.  Five long-tube species have floral tubes between the ovary and petals measuring between 1½ and 3 inches or more in length. A second group of three species has short floral tubes measuring less than one inch long. Three unique species have intermediate length floral tubes and are identified by other features.

2. Spathe position.  All PCIs have a pair of bracts or leaf-like structures (spathes) on the stalk just below the flower that either enclose and protect the ovary (long-tube group), or extend outward away from the stem leaving the ovary exposed (short-tube group). The three unique species outside the two main groups have their own characteristic spathe arrangement.

Floral or perianth tubes: Iris tenax (left - short tube) and Iris chrysophylla (right - long tube). The two intermediate forms in the center are tenax / chrysophylla hybrids [photo Lewis & Adele Lawyer].

   Hybrids. The main difficulty in identifying wild Pacific Coast iris is caused by their willingness to cross pollinate whenever their ranges overlap. The eleven species are easy to described based on their unique features, but many individual plants can be difficult or impossible to assign to one of those species. If your iris comes from one of those places where the ranges of two or three different species overlap, it may very well show the features of two or more species.

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