Blooming today all along the shoreline, pond bank, marsh, and meadow Iris versicolor goes by many charming common names including Sweet Blue Flag, Harlequin Blue Flag, and Northern Blue Flag. The specific epithet versicolor refers to the fact that it flowers in a range of blue to purple hues. No matter what shade of purple-blue, the falls are always yellow. Whatever one calls our native iris, it sure is beautiful, much prettier I think than hard-to-get-rid-of Siberian iris or the top heavy and overly showy bearded iris. And this American beauty is a hummingbird attractant!
SWEET BLUE FLAG
Good Morning Gloucester 
I thought hummingbirds were only attracted to the color RED
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Hummingbirds are highly attracted to the color red however, they drink nectar from a wide range of flowers that are not red including catmint (Nepeta), the yellow flowered native honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens ‘John Clayton’), salvias, columbine, Beauty Bush, Weigelia, Catalpa blossoms, penstemons, fuschia, butterfly bush, and many more.
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Beautiful shots Kim, this iris has to be one of my favorite flowers. As you say, not too showy but a tough plant that can take sea spray and always flowers for quite some time pointing out that real actual hot summer days are here at last.
And now I know what to call it. I pick “Northern Blue Flag.”
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Thank you Paul, and thank you for pointing out its additional outstanding features!
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