Oregon Irises are violet, blue white, yellow, and sometimes pinkish. The places that irises mostly grow are open woods on the lower west side of the cascades. When David Douglas went exploring he found some Native Americans using and braiding Oregon Iris leave into snares to hunt with. David Douglas said, "It will hold the strongest deer in the woods." Iris is a name of a goddess. She's the goddess of the rainbow.
Source:
Mathews, Daniel. Cascade-Olympic Natural History. Raven Editions,
1988.