Second Annual Abbeville Swamp Iris Seed Collection is Completed by LICI

July 14, 2024, New Orleans, La.

For the 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. On July 8th, two LICI volunteers braved the stifling mid-summer heat and humidity of south Louisiana, gathering sixty-five seed pods after a morning of crisscrossing one section of the swamp. Once the pods were opened and the seeds potted during five volunteer events in the following days, the count came to an impressive 2,187 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.

Iris nelsonii, commonly known as the Abbeville Red iris, is one of only five species of Louisiana iris. It is also the rarest, found naturally only in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. Its sole native habitat is a privately owned wetland known as the Abbeville Swamp—or, as local residents call it, the Turkey Island Swamp.

Photo: In April, two LICI volunteer searched the Abbeville Swamp for clumps of Abbeville Red irises. The visit revealed that vast stretches of the swamp no longer hold the plants, raising concern about their decline. At the same time, some blooming irises were located and marked in hopes that they would set seed pods to be collected in July.

Several groups have offered to germinate the seeds collected by the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) to support its iris restoration projects at Palmetto Island State Park and the Abbeville Swamp. Later this year, LICI will gather the seedlings that sprout and transfer them to its iris nursery in New Orleans. There, they will be grown in containers until they reach maturity. In December 2025, the young plants will be transplanted into the boardwalk swamp at Palmetto Island State Park.

Once the irises bloom the following spring, many of those confirmed as true Abbeville Red irises will be relocated back into the Abbeville Swamp to help restore the population. Today, it is estimated that only a few hundred Abbeville Reds remain in the swamp, compared to the thousands recorded there when the species was first discovered in the 1930s.

This plan reflects the fact that almost all seeds left in the swamp would otherwise be lost, since the chances of Louisiana iris seeds germinating, surviving, and growing into mature plants in the wild are 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,” explains LICI’s president and founder, Gary Salathe.

Shown here are some of the sixty-five Abbeville Red iris seed pods collected from the Abbeville Swamp during a morning of fieldwork on July 8th.

The first seed potting event took place on the afternoon of July 8th, the same day the pods were collected from the Abbeville Swamp. Four volunteers from the Abbeville Garden Club, along with LICI president Gary Salathe, opened a portion of the pods and planted 500 seeds into pots using soil and supplies provided by LICI.

The work was done in a barn at the rural home of Susan Wilhelm, president of the Abbeville Garden Club, located just south of Abbeville, Louisiana. Her husband, Ed Wilhelm, hosted the gathering and will care for the seed pots as they begin to 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 no surprise they also wanted to help germinate the seeds,” Salathe said.

Abbeville Garden Club members with 500 Abbeville Red iris seeds before covering them with ½ inch of potting soil. Ed Wilhelm is in the dark blue shirt at the center.

The second seed pod opening event was held on the morning of July 9th at the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association’s Demonstration Garden, located on the grounds of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Ira Nelson Horticultural Center. A large group of Master Gardeners members took part in the event.

The day began with an impromptu 45-minute indoor question-and-answer session with LICI president Gary Salathe. Many attendees had previously joined a May presentation organized by LICI at Palmetto Island State Park, where Patrick O’Connor—president of the Greater New Orleans Iris Society and a recognized authority on Louisiana irises—spoke about the Abbeville Red iris. The July gathering gave members an opportunity to ask follow-up questions of Salathe, particularly about what LICI has learned during recent trips to the Abbeville Swamp regarding the causes behind the iris’s decline.

On May 9, 2024, Patrick O’Connor gave a presentation on the Abbeville Red iris to the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association at Palmetto Island State Park. That same afternoon, he repeated the talk for local landowners and agency representatives, followed by a presentation from Gary Salathe on the threats to the Abbeville Swamp.

Following the question-and-answer session, Salathe demonstrated how to open the iris seed pods and plant the seeds into pots. The group planted more than 360 Abbeville Red iris seeds during the event.

“The Master Gardeners showed interest after Patrick’s May presentation in finding ways their group could contribute to the iris restoration projects at the park and the Abbeville Swamp. The seed germination they’re doing for us is the first of what we hope will be many ways their members can support our efforts in the future,” Salathe said.

Seventeen members of the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association place pots containing Abbeville Red iris seeds into the shade house at their demonstration garden on the grounds of ULL’s Ira Nelson Horticultural Center on July 9, 2024.

Next, members of the Acadiana Native Plant Project took part in a seed pod opening and potting demonstration led by Salathe at their native plant nursery in Arnaudville, Louisiana, on the afternoon of July 9th. The activity served as an educational opportunity for members to learn how to propagate Louisiana irises from seeds. This marked the second year the group has assisted LICI with germinating Abbeville Red seeds. During the event, they potted 440 seeds.

Volunteers from the Acadiana Native Plant Project display pots of Abbeville Red irises after the July 9, 2024, seed potting event. A few members had to leave before the photo was taken.

On July 10th, LICI volunteers joined staff from the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP) nursery in Thibodaux, Louisiana, to open seed pods and plant 337 Abbeville Red iris seeds into pots. The nursery, located on Nicholls State University’s farm, is the site of one of LICI’s largest iris restoration projects.

“We greatly appreciate BTNEP’s Native Plant Nursery Coordinator, Ashleigh Lamiotte, and her team 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, stands at the center with her team and LICI volunteers as they pot Abbeville Red iris seeds on July 10, 2024.

The final Abbeville Red seed potting demonstration took place on Saturday, July 13, 2024, at the Greater New Orleans Iris Society (GNOIS) nursery in New Orleans’ City Park. The activity also served as an educational opportunity for members and the public to learn how to propagate Louisiana irises from seeds. Members of GNOIS, the Master Gardeners of Greater New Orleans, LICI volunteers, and community participants planted over 550 seeds. The GNOIS will care for the pots in their nursery until the seedlings emerge and begin growing in about five months.

This group shot shows many of the volunteers at the GNOIS seed

potting event on July 13, 2024.

LICI is leading an Abbeville Red Louisiana iris restoration project at the boardwalk swamp in Palmetto Island State Park, in partnership with the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park. The park, located slightly downriver and across the Vermilion River from the Abbeville Swamp, was shown on historical maps as once supporting Abbeville Red irises within its wetlands.

This boardwalk display at Palmetto Island State Park educates visitors about the rare Abbeville Red iris, one of LICI’s conservation priorities.

The boardwalk swamp at Palmetto Island State Park features an Abbeville Red iris display, established in 2011 by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the Department of State Parks, with assistance from the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park, Inc. The display was created to showcase this rare iris in its natural habitat, since the swamp where the irises originally grew 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.

Since the spring of 2023, LICI has been managing the iris restoration project at the boardwalk swamp in Palmetto Island State Park, with support from volunteers from local groups and the public. The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park have partnered in the project, providing volunteers and funding in 2023 to help get the restoration efforts underway.

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 goals of the project is to increase the number of Abbeville Red irises growing in the boardwalk swamp so that the public can enjoy their blooms and learn about this threatened native species. Another goal is that, once the blooming irises are verified as Iris nelsonii, many of them can eventually be thinned and returned to the Abbeville Swamp to help restore the native population.

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 fewer than 300 Abbeville Red irises were growing in the boardwalk swamp at Palmetto Island State Park during the 2023 bloom. During a LICI iris planting event in December of that year, over 700 additional Abbeville Red irises were planted, donated by Kent Benton, a Livingston Parish Iris nelsonii enthusiast and grower. LICI currently has more than 800 Abbeville Red irises growing at its New Orleans nursery, originating from seeds collected from the Abbeville Swamp in 2023 and from a donation of mature irises by the Greater New Orleans Iris Society as part of their role in the Louisiana Iris Species Preservation Project. LICI hopes to receive additional donations from other collectors later this year, which will be planted into the boardwalk swamp this winter.

Each spring, Louisiana iris experts will wade through the boardwalk swamp in hip boots to verify that the blooming plants are true Iris nelsonii. “Anything that is not an obvious I. nelsonii, or even suspect, will be pulled up on the spot,” Salathe said. He leads LICI’s iris restoration projects at both the park and the Abbeville Swamp. “This ensures that the boardwalk display contains only pure I. nelsonii irises before we start moving some back into the Abbeville Swamp during the winter of 2026.”

Salathe summarizes the program: “We are creating a system to move between one and two thousand I. nelsonii irises each year back into their native habitat in the Abbeville Swamp. We do this by collecting a couple thousand Abbeville Red iris seeds annually from the swamp, having various groups grow them out, and then planting them in Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp to be verified before relocating them to the Abbeville Swamp. Meanwhile, a large stock remains at the park for the public to enjoy during bloom. We greatly appreciate all the groups that have joined us in making this effort a reality. Thank you.”