by Nicolette L. Cagle, June 13, 2026
In Khentii Province, Mongolia, history is close to the ground. This is a landscape closely associated with Chinggis Khan, with the Onon and Kherlen river worlds of his birth, with sacred mountains, and with the stories that connect empire, pastoral life, and Mongolian identity. To walk in Khentii is to move through a place where human history and ecological history are intertwined.
I looked down as I walked. The grass was short and bright, cropped by sheep, goats, horses, and cattle. I stepped around cow patties, small deer pellets, round ger-like ant mounds, and the disturbed soil of marmot burrows. From a distance, the steppe can trick a traveler into seeing emptiness. Up close, it is full of markers and signs, hoofprints, burrows, dung, insects, grazing paths, and flowers.
Some flowers appeared as small points of color scattered through the grass: the white, wide heads of Eastern Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla patens), the dense cream flowers of Anemonastrum crinitum, the yellow blooms of Grass-leaved Daylily (Hemerocallis minor), and the small blue flowers of Alpine Forget-Me-Nots, which current taxonomy may treat as Myosotis asiatica.
But the purple blooms drew my eye the most. Irises blossomed low in the grass, their flowers rising from wide leaves in shades of violet, blue, lavender, and white. Some were Siberian Iris (Iris sibirica). Others appeared to be forms of Milky Iris (Iris lactea), including the pale-blue to pale-purple form Iris lactea f. biglumis, known from southern Siberia to Mongolia.
Irises can look fragile. Their flowers are folded, veined, and temporary, built from standards — the three upright petals — and falls — the three downward-curving petals — that seem almost too ornate for a wind-shaped valley. But an iris is not only a flower. It is also a rhizome, a belowground stem that stores resources, sends up new shoots, and helps the plant persist beyond any single season of bloom.
That belowground life is essential in a grazed landscape. Livestock crop grasses and forbs; hooves press into the soil; drought, cold, and short growing seasons constrain what plants do aboveground. But rhizomatous geophytes such as Iris sibirica and Iris lactea keep part of themselves below the surface. They can flower, be clipped, and return.
This does not mean grazing is harmless, or that these irises are simply “adapted” to grazing. A review of Mongolian steppe studies found that grazing effects vary by steppe type, with generally negative effects in desert, dry, and high mountain steppes, and weaker or sometimes positive effects in meadow and mountain steppes (Munkhzul et al., 2021). But the irises’ persistence makes sense in ecological terms because belowground storage, seasonal timing, and chemical defenses all shape which plants remain visible in heavily used grasslands.
Irises carry chemical defenses. Many species are considered potentially toxic if eaten, especially their rhizomes, and horticultural irises in the United States are rarely browsed by deer. This may help explain why irises can remain conspicuous in some grazed places while more palatable plants are shorn. Their beauty, then, is not separate from their defenses. The flower is only the part we notice first.
The two iris species that I noticed offer related but distinct stories. For example, Siberian Iris has a broad native range from central Europe to Mongolia. It is also familiar to many gardeners as a hardy ornamental. In parts of Europe, wild populations are associated with wet meadows, damp grasslands, and open habitats shaped by mowing, grazing, drainage, succession, and other land-use changes. In the wild, Siberian Iris is a reminder that openness is not emptiness. It is a condition made and remade by water, animals, and anthropogenic disturbance.
Milky Iris teaches a different lesson. Its range extends across temperate Asia toward the western Himalaya. Flora of China describes it in open hillsides, grasslands, and roadsides, flowering in spring to early summer and fruiting into late summer (Zhao et al., 2000). One form, Iris lactea f. biglumis, is especially relevant to Mongolia, with a native range from southern Siberia to Mongolia.
Recent scientific work on Milky Iris and closely related forms, especially Iris lactea var. chinensis, offers more lessons. Researchers have studied Milky Iris’s responses to drought, salinity, and heavy metals, including gene expression, proline metabolism, antioxidant systems, ion transport, and cadmium tolerance (Meng et al., 2017; Ni et al., 2021; Li et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2023). These studies underscore that the iris lineage has tools for difficult soils, water stress, and environmental strain.
There are human stories here too. Milky Iris has been studied for phytochemistry and traditional medicinal uses in parts of Asia. Researchers have isolated compounds including flavones, isoflavones, and quinones, and recent work has tested anti-inflammatory activity from seed compounds (Tie et al., 2022). But irises should not be used casually. Many can be irritating or poisonous, especially their rhizomes.
In Khentii Province, though, I first noticed the color: purple against fresh green grass. Purple among dung, hoofprints, marmot mounds, ant hills, and wind. Purple in a place where pastoral life continues alongside older histories and newer changes: steppe cultures, sacred mountains, empire, Buddhist and shamanic practices, socialist collectivization, the 1990 democratic and market economy transition, conservation research, and now, climate stress.
It is tempting, as a traveler, to look across a valley and imagine it unchanged. To think this is what earlier people saw, that this is what Chinggis Khan saw. But the valley isn’t frozen in time; it is continuity shaped by change.
The grasses have been grazed by different herds under different political and economic systems. Herders have lived through collectivization and privatization. Sacred mountains have been honored, restricted, remembered, and revived. Wildlife has persisted, declined, returned, and shifted. Flowers have bloomed through all of it, not as decorations on the steppe, but as participants in its ongoing life. The iris blooms are temporary. Their flowers fold, fade, and vanish each year, but belowground, the rhizomes remain, holding a piece of history.
References
Kew Science. n.d.-a. Anemonastrum crinitum (Juz.) Holub. Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Kew Science. n.d.-b. Myosotis asiatica (Vestergr.) Schischk. & Serg. Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Kew Science. n.d.-c. Iris sibirica L. Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Kew Science. n.d.-d. Iris lactea f. biglumis (Vahl) Kitag. Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Kew Science. n.d.-e. Iris lactea Pall. Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Li, C., Q. H. Wang, X. C. Hou, C. Q. Zhao, and Q. Guo. 2023. “Overexpression of IlHMA2, from Iris lactea, Improves the Accumulation of and Tolerance to Cadmium in Tobacco.” Plants 12:3460.
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UConn Home & Garden Education Center. 2019. “Iris.” University of Connecticut College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. n.d. “Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain and Its Surrounding Sacred Landscape.”
USDA Forest Service. n.d. “Alpine Forget-Me-Not, Myosotis asiatica.” Plant of the Week.
Wang, Z., L. Ni, L. Liu, H. Yuan, and C. Gu. 2023. “IlAP2, an AP2/ERF Superfamily Gene, Mediates Cadmium Tolerance by Interacting with IlMT2a in Iris lactea var. chinensis.” Plants 12:823.
Zhang, Y., et al. 2023. “Iris lactea var. chinensis Plant Drought Tolerance Depends on the Response of Proline Metabolism, Transcription Factors, Transporters and the ROS-Scavenging System.” BMC Plant Biology 23:17.
Zhao, Y., H. J. Noltie, and B. Mathew. 2000. “Iris lactea.” In Flora of China, vol. 24.
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