Sweet Flag

Medium to tall, tufted, rhizomatous plant. Leaves linear, pointed, rather Iris like. 7 to 20 mm wide, often with one or both margins crinkled, smelling sweetly when bruised. Flowers tiny, greenish yellow in a compact, narrow ascending cone 5 to 9 cm long, the stem prolonged above the flower cone into a leaf like spathe.

Rivers, canals and ponds.

Flowers June and July.

Perennial.

Widespread but rather local in Britain.

Locally fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 49 of the 617 tetrads.