Fields of wild irises now a spring memory

April is the month that reminds me that God must have been in a good mood when he created Acadiana. It’s one of the prettiest places you’ll find anywhere in early spring. It is also the place where you will find Louisiana irises blooming this month – the only plant that I know of that blooms naturally in every color of the rainbow.
Ira Schreiber Nelson, the UL (then SLI) professor for whom the horticulture center is named, was one of the great admirers of these native plants and for many years worked to protect, preserve, and propagate them as secretary of the Society for Louisiana Irises (which was originally called the Mary Swords DeBaillon Louisiana Iris Society to honor another pioneer fancier).
These irises can be divided into several species, most of which historically grew most prolifically in a limited area in coastal south Louisiana. When I was a boy, the third weekend in April was marked on the calendar as the time to pile into the family car for a ride along what is now designated the Creole Nature Trail to “look at the irises.”
It is getting more and more difficult to find spots where wild iris put on a spectacular springtime show, but it is still possible to find a few in lower Cameron and Vermilion parishes where you can get an idea of what once was.
Even in the early 1950s, Professor Nelson was beginning to worry that “the great fields of natural hybrids are rapidly becoming a memory.”
But what a memory it was.
“Below Abbeville, near Henry” Nelson wrote in undated notes kept in the archives at UL’s Dupre Library, “there is an area known as Iris Heaven. . … At the time Iris Heaven was discovered (about 1940) it was aptly named. Today … the combination of drainage and a cycle of dry years have all but eliminated the hybrid swarms.”
He also recalled another place “within a mile of Iris Heaven” where “there is located the most important single collecting grounds yet discovered.”
This was the place where the species known popularly as the Abbeville Reds grew in abundance, and where Nelson went to gather plants from the wild “before they were erased from the face of the earth by encroaching civilization.”
It seems like a pleasant enough pastime – going out into the wild to gather pretty plants – but to some of the denizens of the swamp, Nelson and his helpers were the encroachers. He wrote to a friend about one excursion into the swamp when it was necessary for some of the party to “distract the alligators” while the others harvested plants. He didn’t say just how the ’gators were preoccupied, but I’m pretty sure I’d rather be a digger than a distracter.
Because of his work with the Abbeville Reds the species has been formally named for him, Iris nelsonii. This is the rarest species of Louisiana iris because it did not naturally grow anywhere but in the small section of swamp near Abbeville.
One hundred Abbeville Red bulbs were planted in Palmetto State Park in Vermilion Parish in 2011, with the hope of spreading it into a habitat where it can continue to grow in the wild, and throughout the years collectors and hybridizers have maintained plants in private collections to guard against Nelson’s fear of their extinction.
These irises have also provided parent stock for hybridizers to create scores of beautiful new varieties in all shapes, sizes, and colors.
These new plants and the old ones that have been preserved serve as springtime reminders of what once was, but, sadly, the sprawling fields where Louisiana irises once were found in wild abundance are all but gone.

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.