The history of Iris reticulata, how it relates to the most under appreciated Goddess, and one of the earliest blooms to poke through the snow.

An illustration of Iris, from a 1922 edition of John Milton's *Comus*, illustrated by Arthur Rackham.

How did Zeus communicate with mortals and demigods?

When someone inquires: Who was the messenger of the Gods? most people think of the zippy Hermes (from the Greek herma, a heap of stones or cairn), dashing hither and yon with his fancy Hephaestian sandals. But the original messenger was Iris, personification of the rainbow. Throughout Homer’s Iliad, for example, only Iris relays word from Zeus, while Hermes serves merely as guardian and guide. The spirit, like the meteorological phenomenon, connects the heavens with earth. It was said that wherever Iris set foot, colorful flowers sprung in her wake. We still invoke her radiance with words like iridescent and the element Iridium, known to display a striking array of colors while dissolving in hydrochloric acid.

From this goddess, we get the genus name Iris. The earliest of all irises in Indiana are the reticulated (or netted) irises. ‘Reticulata’ is reference to the characteristic net-like pattern on dry bulbs. In some years, their showy tripartite blooms push right through the snow. Iris reticulata is native to Turkey, the Caucasus, Northern Iraq and Iran. It is a short (very short - 5 or 6 inches) purple bulbous perennial that always warms my heart, as it invariably presages the dawn of spring. Reticulated iris are one of the few plants that can tolerate juglone, the allelopathic cytotoxin released by the Black Walnut.