This is the common garden iris, with many cultivars; 2n = 36-48, In Ky. several colls. (including OLDH and ROBE) are probably from persistent plantings rather than true naturalizations. The rhizome has had much traditional uses in medicine. In this species and its relatives, the are diverse isoflavones, xanthones, quinones, flavones, terpenes and simple phenolics that have multiple biological activities (Kukula-Koch et al. 2015).