An additional note: A couple of members of Facebook's Iris Lovers Group mentioned high fees (approaching $100) for getting the USDA permit to import. There are business that charge you to get the FREE permit. Their ads pop up on the Internet before the USDA site does. USDA was extremely (understatement!) difficult to understand the process. The website has very recently been greatly improved but it still requires a lot of mental processing. That is why I detailed the process step by step. Ultimately a very helpful agent explained the initial part of the import process. Yes, the permit is FREE. Try following my outline.
