The flower in Georgia O'Keeffe's 1932 painting Black Iris is an iris.
O'Keeffe repeatedly painted flowers at unusually large scale, cropping them so viewers had to confront their shapes, folds, and color transitions. Black Iris is one of the best-known examples of this approach, with a dark, dramatic central form surrounded by deep purple and black tones.
The painting belongs to a period when O'Keeffe's enlarged flowers attracted considerable attention. She rejected the idea that viewers should treat every flower image as a literal symbol and emphasized instead the visual experience of looking closely at a natural object.
Black Iris is sometimes confused with O'Keeffe's other iris paintings, including Dark Iris No. III and several works from the 1920s. The title itself identifies the subject as an iris, not a rose or lily.