Iris is a genus of plants that includes about 300 species and it's distributed on the hole Northen Hemisphere. Their habitats are also extremely variable so they can be found anywhere from deserts to swamps. They are perennial herbs with creeping rhizomes or bulbs. Due to their large and often vividly coloured flowers, these plants have fascinated people from the very beginning. Flowers can be easily recognized by their six petals of perigon of which the outer three are often of different sizes and shapes compared to the three inner ones. Inner and outer petals are opposite from each other. Genus this big in wich many natural hybrids exist was hard to classify. Many botanists were involved in classification of this genus, and today is considered that genus Iris can be divided into six subgenera. Modern analysis that are based on DNA sequence data shows that some subgenera don't have monophyletic origin and it's obvious that new classification based on this method is needed. Genus is present in flora of Croatia with twelve indigenous taxa.