July 14, 2024, New Orleans, La.
For a second year in a row, the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) has completed its annual collection of Iris nelsonii seed pods from the Abbeville Swamp in Vermilion Parish. Two LICI volunteers collected sixty-five seed pods on July 8th after a morning of hard work crisscrossing portions of the swamp in the stifling heat and humidity of mid-summer in south Louisiana. After the seed pods were opened and potted at five separate volunteer events in the following days, it was discovered that they held 2,187 individual seeds.
LICI volunteer David Duvic, from St. Francisville, La., is seen looking for seed pods among the Abbeville Red irises in the Abbeville Swamp on the morning of July 8, 2024.
The I. nelsonii iris is one of only five species of the Louisiana iris. Its common name is the Abbeville Red iris. It is the rarest of the five Louisiana iris species. Its only native habitat is in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, in and around a privately owned swamp named the Abbeville Swamp, or, as nearby residents know it, the Turkey Island Swamp.
One of LICI's volunteers is seen during a trip to the Abbeville Swamp in April to locate clumps of Abbeville red irises. The trip's main focus that day was to try and discover on the owners' behalf why the irises have been disappearing from the swamp. They found that vast
areas of the swamp no longer hold any irises. A secondary purpose of the trip was to
locate blooming irises that may turn into seed pods that could be collected in July.
Several groups had offered to germinate the seeds for LICI to help with the group's iris restoration projects in Palmetto Island State Park and the Abbeville Swamp. LICI will collect the seedlings that germinate from the seeds later this year. They will then be planted into containers at their iris nursery in New Orleans, grown out to mature plants, and then planted at the Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp in December 2025. Once they bloom and are confirmed as true Abbeville Red irises the following spring, they will be relocated back into the Abbeville Swamp to help restore the irises there. It is believed only a few hundred Abbeville Red irises are remaining in the swamp from the thousands found there when they were discovered during the 1930's.
The plan is based on the fact that almost all of these seeds would be wasted if they stayed in the swamp since the percentage of Louisiana iris seeds germinating, growing, and surviving into mature plants in the wild is extremely low. "We can return to the Abbeville Swamp as mature plants in eighteen months a much higher percentage of the seeds we collect compared to hoping the seeds germinate on their own in the swamp," LICI's president and founder, Gary Salathe, says.
A portion of the sixty-five Abbeville Red iris seed pods that were collected from the Abbeville Swamp on the morning of July 8th are shown.
The first event to open some of the seed pods and pot the seeds was held on the afternoon of July 8th, the same day they were collected from the Abbeville swamp. Four volunteers from the Abbeville Garden Club and Salathe collected 500 seeds from some of the seed pods and planted them into pots using soil and pots supplied by LICI. The group worked in a barn at the home of Susan Wilhelm, president of the Abbeville Garden Club, located in a rural area just south of Abbeville, La. Her husband, Ed Wilhelm, hosted the event and will watch over the seed pots as they germinate on behalf of the club.
"The Abbeville Garden Club has supported our efforts to restore the Abbeville Red irises at Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk swamp. Their members have volunteered at several of our events there, so it's unsurprising that they wanted to help germinate the seeds," Salathe said.
The four members of the Abbeville Garden Club are shown with the 500 Abbeville Red iris seeds just before they are covered with 1/2" of potting spoil. Ed Wilhelm is wearing
the dark blue shirt in the center of the photo.
The second seed pod opening event took place the following day, July 9th, at the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association's Demonstration Garden on the grounds of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Ira Nelson Horticultural Center in Lafayette, La. A large group of their members attended the morning event.
The event began with an impromptu indoor forty-five-minute question and answer session with Salathe. Many of those present had attended a LICI-organized presentation for the group in May that was given by Patrick O'Connor at the Palmetto Island State Park meeting room. O'Connor is the president of the Greater New Orleans Iris Society and a renowned Louisiana iris expert. The Master Gardeners members had many follow-up questions for Salathe from O'Connor's talk about the Abbeville Red iris and what LICI has discovered in their recent trips to the Abbeville Swamp about the causes for the decreasing numbers of irises there.
Patrick O'Connor is shown giving a presentation on the Abbeville Red iris to members of the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association on May 9, 2024, in the meeting room of Palmetto Island State Park. A repeat of O'Connor's presentation was given to members of area governmental agencies and some of the swamp's landowners later that
same day. Salathe followed O'Connor's afternoon presentation with one of
his own on the threats to the Abbeville Swamp.
After the question-and-answer session, Salathe demonstrated how to open the iris seed pods and plant the seeds into pots. They planted over 360 Abbeville Red iris seeds.
"The Master Gardeners expressed an interest after Patrick's presentation in May about finding ways their group can help with the iris restoration projects in the park and the Abbeville Swamp. The seed germination they are doing for us is the first of what we hope will be other things their members can help us with in the future," Salathe said.
Seventeen members of the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association are shown putting the pots holding the Abbeville Red iris seeds into their shade house at their demonstration garden/nursery on ULL's Ira Nelson Horticultural Center grounds on July 9, 2024.
Next up were members of the Acadiana Native Plant Project. Salathe held the seed pod opening and potting demonstration at their native plant nursery in Arnaudville, La. on that same afternoon of July 9th. The group used planting the seeds as an educational opportunity for their members on how to propagate Louisiana irises from seeds. This is the second year the group has helped germinate Abbeville Red seeds for LICI. The group potted four hundred forty seeds.
Some of the volunteers with the Acadiana Native Plant Project are seen with the pots of Abbeville Red iris at the July 9, 2024, seed potting event. (A few volunteers had to leave before this photo was taken.)
The next day, on July 10th, LICI volunteers and members of the staff of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP) nursery in Thibodaux, La. opened seed pods and planted 337 Abbeville Red iris seeds into pots at their native plant nursery. The nursery is located on the Nichols State University's Farm, the location of one of LICI's largest iris restoration projects. "We appreciate BTNEP's Native Plant Nursery Coordinator, Ashleigh Lamiotte, and her crew for helping us germinate seeds from the Abbeville Swamp for a second year in a row," Salathe said.
BTNEP's Native Plant Nursery Coordinator, Ashleigh Lamiotte, is seen in the center of the photo among some of her staff and LICI volunteers during the July 10th
Abbeville Red iris seed potting.
The final Abbeville Red seed potting demonstration was held at the Greater New Orleans Iris Society's (GNOIS) iris nursery in New Orleans' City Park on Saturday, July 13, 2024. The group also used the activity as an educational opportunity for their members and the public on propagating Louisiana irises from seeds. Members of the GNOIS, the Master Gardeners of Greater New Orleans, LICI volunteers, and volunteers from the public potted over 550 seeds. The GNOIS will watch over the pots in their nursery until the seedlings appear and start growing in about five months.
This group shot shows many of the volunteers at the GNOIS seed
potting event on July 13, 2024.
LICI has an Abbeville Red Louisiana iris restoration project underway at the boardwalk swamp in Palmetto Island State Park with their partners, the Friends of the Palmetto Island State Park. The park is located slightly downriver and across the Vermilion River from the Abbeville Swamp and was shown on a historical map as once having Abbeville Red irises growing within its swamp.
This is one of the educational displays on the boardwalk at the Abbeville Red iris planting in Palmetto Island State Park. Increasing the public's knowledge of this very rare Louisiana iris species is an important goal of the iris display.
The park's boardwalk swamp is home to an Abbeville Red iris display, created in 2011 by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries and the Department of State Parks with the help of the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park, Inc. The idea was that this public display would showcase this rare iris in its natural habitat since the swamp where the irises originated is privately owned and gated.
On September 9, 2023, LICI held a Chinese Tallow tree removal event in the boardwalk swamp of Palmetto Island State Park as part of its management plan for
the Abbeville Red iris display planting there.
LICI has been managing the iris restoration project at the park's boardwalk swamp since the spring of 2023, with the help of volunteers from various local groups and the public. The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park has partnered with LICI in the project, supplying volunteers and funding in 2023 to get the project up and running.
Some of the many people who came to Palmetto Island State Park to see the irises blooming are shown during LICI's Abbeville Red Iris Bloom Event on April 6, 2024.
One of the project's goals is to increase the number of Abbeville Red irises growing in the park's boardwalk swamp so the public can see them bloom and learn about this threatened native iris species. Another goal is that, at some point in the future, after the blooming irises are verified as I. nelsonii irises, many of them can be thinned out and returned to the Abbeville Swamp.
Photo: Abbeville Red irises blooming on April 14, 2024, in one of the clumps of irises
at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk.
It is estimated that less than 1,000 Abbeville Red irises were growing in the park's boardwalk swamp during the 2023 iris bloom. During a LICI iris planting event held at the park in December of that year, over 700 additional Abbeville Red irises were planted into the boardwalk swamp that came from an iris donation by Kent Benton, a Livingston Parish I. nelsonii aficionado and grower. LICI currently has over 800 Abbeville Red irises growing at its New Orleans iris nursery that came from seeds collected from the Abbeville swamp in 2023 and from a donation of mature irises from the Greater New Orleans Iris Society as their role as a "steward" in the Louisiana Iris Species Preservation Project. LICI is hoping to get donations of more Abbeville Red irises from other collectors later this year. They will all be planted into the park's boardwalk swamp this winter.
The plan is for Louisiana iris experts to put on hip boots and walk through the irises as they bloom in the boardwalk swamp each spring to verify that each is, in fact, a true I. nelsonii iris. "Anything that is not an obvious I. nelsonii iris, or even suspect, will be pulled up on the spot," Salathe says. He leads the LICI iris restoration project at the park and the Abbeville Swamp. "This is being done to be sure the iris display at the boardwalk holds only pure I. nelsonii irises before we start moving some of them back into Abbeville Swamp during the winter of 2025," he adds.
Salathe summarizes the program they have put together: "We are creating a system where we can move between one and two thousand I. nelsonii irises a year back into their native habitat in the Abbeville Swamp. We can do this by collecting a couple of thousand Abbeville Red iris seeds each year from the Abbeville Swamp, having various groups grow the irises out, and then planting them into the Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk swamp to be verified before being relocated into the Abbeville Swamp, all the while maintaining a huge stock at the park's boardwalk for the public to enjoy while they are blooming. We greatly appreciate all of the groups that have joined with us in this effort to make it a reality. Thank you."
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