Americanized Yellow Flag Gardens in Containers, Courtyards, Wastelands

Summary: Americanized yellow flag gardens in containers, courtyards and wastelands impose minimum survival requirements on Rocky Mountain iris and yellow flag.

yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) in garden; Monday, May 2, 2011, 14:41:15: Lyndon_Gardening, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Americanized yellow flag gardens, where they are legal, act out aggressive life cycles least intrusively in courtyard and indoor containerized arrangements and on eroded outdoor patches with related, weedy Rocky Mountain iris.

The perennial native to Europe, North Africa and western Asia brings on poison-induced abdominal pains, diarrhea, gastroenteritis, nausea, paralysis, spasms, staggering and vomiting in grazing livestock. Yellow flag, nicknamed pale yellow flag, water flag and yellow iris, constructs impenetrable stands on barren, compacted, disturbed, polluted, unbalanced soils and on fertile, moist ground. Reproducing by multiple modes and threatening crop diversity, ecosystem well-being, human health and species diversity generally drive native and non-native vegetation into North America's weed pull-piles.

Yellow flag endures weed sanctions in Alberta and British Columbia in Canada, and in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon and Washington in the United States.

Seedlings flounder during the first two months in drought and temperatures below 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) and flourish grass-like embyonic leaves called cotyledons.

Subsequent leaves grow edgewise into green, solid stems with "fibrous remains of old leaves" at their bases and 15.75- to 59.06-inch (40- to 150-centimeter) mature heights. Yellow flag generally has 10 primarily basal, green, 15.75- to 39.37-inch- (40- to 100-centimeter-) long, 0.39- to 1.18-inch- (1- to 3-centimeter-) wide leaves with raised midribs. Its moisture-loving foliage inclines toward clumped, fast, strong growth habits because of dissolved nutrient deliveries from fleshy, 11.81-inch- (30-centimeter-) long roots and from pooled photosynthetic products.

Branched, drought-tolerant, elongated, pink, submersion-tolerant underwater stems, called rhizomes, jostle buoyant seeds and fragmented shoots as the three main reproductive modes in Americanized yellow flag gardens.

Yellow flag, scientifically named Iris pseudacorus (rainbow, false sweet sedge), keeps rhizomes growing 0.39 to 1.58 inches (1 to 4 centimeters) across during eight-week stretches underwater.

The weedy ornamental in the Iridaceae family of herbaceous irises lavishes above-ground shoots with four- to 12-flowered inflorescences called cymes whose oldest flowers load the tips. Inner, 2.36- to 3.54- (6- to 9-centimeter-) long and outer, 1.93- to 2.01-inch- (4.9- to 5.1-centimeter-) long, 0.28- to 0.39- (7- to 10-millimeter-) wide bracts meet. One pistil with three yellow-branched styles, three petals, three sepals and three stamens nestle into perfect flowers 3.15 to 3.94 inches (8 to 10 centimeters) across.

Americanized yellow flag gardens offer brown- or purple-streaked, cream-white or yellow, 1.97- to 2.95-inch- (5- to 7.5-centimeter-) long, 1.18- to 1.58-inch- (3- to 4-centimeter-) wide sepals.

The 0.79- to 1.18-inch- (2- to 3-centimeter-) long petals pick out yellow in 1.18- to 1.58- (3- to 4-centimeter-) long styles during April to May blooms.

Yellow flag quits flowering stages for fruiting stages of dry, explosive, 32- to 47-seeded, three-angled, three-chambered, 1.38- to 3.15-inch- (3.5- to 8-centimeter-) long fruits called capsules. Yellow flag, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), yearly releases about 300 cork-like, D-shaped, flat seeds from five to six capsules. Non-submerged, pale to dark brown seeds 0.24 to 0.28 (6 to 7 millimeters) across sprout at 59 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (15 to 30 degrees Celsius).

Minimum survival requirements in Americanized yellow flag gardens thwart aggression in Rocky Mountain iris and yellow flag, rambunctious relatives of beloved crocus, freesia, gladiolus and iris.

yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) along the trail, Estany del Cortalet, Parc Naturel dels Aiguamolls de l'Empordà, Castelló d'Empúries, Catalunya; Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 16:40:43: Bernard DuPont (berniedup), CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) in garden; Monday, May 2, 2011, 14:41:15: Lyndon_Gardening, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/84128524@N05/8561900489/

yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) along the trail, Estany del Cortalet, Parc Naturel dels Aiguamolls de l'Empordà, Castelló d'Empúries, Catalunya; Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 16:40:43: Bernard DuPont (berniedup), CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/berniedup/26226878160/

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

"Iris pseudacorus L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/16600257

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "7. Iris Pseudacorus." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 38-39. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358059

Modzelevich, Martha. "Iris pseudacorus, Yellow Iris, Yellow Waterflag, Jacob's Sword, Hebrew: אירוס ענף; Arabic: السوسن الشمالي الكاذب." Flowers in Israel.
Available @ http://www.flowersinisrael.com/Irispseudacorus_page.htm

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.