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Yellow Flag Iris - Iris pseudacorus

Perennial plant growing in shallow water and very damp areas, rivers, ponds or ditches at low altitudes. Grows to about 1.5m (5ft) high from thick short creeping rhizomes, with sword shaped grey-green sometimes wrinkled leaves. Robust stems branched at the top carrying clusters of two or three long stalked yellow flowers with a very distinct iris type shape that appear during May to August. Not native to the UK but widely cultivated, it has escaped and naturalised to the environment, spreading by seed or rhizome growth forming dense clumps that exclude almost all other aquatic vegetation. It is listed as a "Total Control Plant Pest" in New Zealand. Related to the Siberian iris (I. sibirica) which has violet-blue flowers and linear leaves.

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