Donate online to help support Botany Photo of the Day

Subscribe to BPotD

Type your email address below!

BPotD Around the World!

Locations of visitors to this page

Botany Photo of the Day
In science, beauty. In beauty, science. Daily.

Zephyranthes fosteri

Zephyranthes fosteri
Zephyranthes fosteri

Well, first of all, apologies for the flaky server these past few days. We're still not sure what's been causing the outages, but if we do figure out what's been causing it, we'll post the details in this thread on the forums. I'm hoping it won't crash when the notification emails are sent out, but I suppose we'll see...

In any case, it's been quite some time since we've had some photographs from El Charco del Ingenio in Mexico, courtesy of David Tarrant, so I was happy to see these recent pics from him.

Zephyranthes fosteri has English common names of fairy lily, rain lily and zephyr lily. In Mexico, David informs me, it is known as mayito, or little may flower. David sent along these details to me:

"Have attached these images of Zephyranthes fosteri taken at el Charco last Friday!!! I am always amazed at such delicate little flowers emerging form parched earth. The larger group is right in the middle of a lightly-used path,, while the single one by the rock is in a well-used path. They are, of course, bulbous perennials... They are also referred to as rain lilies, although we haven't had a significant rainfall for months (other than 1cm earlier last week). Maybe enough to trigger these blooms."

Zephyranthes fosteri is listed on the Weeds of Mexico site (Zephyranthes fosteri), but no details are given about its economic impact. Other details about the plant, including whether it is restricted to Mexico in its distribution or not, are hard to come by online.

7 Comments

Beverley commented:

Zephyranthes, zef-er-an-thez; from Gr. zephyr, the west wind, and anthos, a flower. Plant Names Simplified, Johnson and Smith

Margaret-Rae Davis commented:

What a wonderful plant family with so many different looking flowers. Each has a beauty of it's own. The photographs a so nice.
Thank you,
Margaret-Rae

Flavia Bernard commented:

I love your pics. Made me smile. This fairy lily grows wild in our area of Sangre Grande, Trinidad, West Indies, 40 miles from the capital of Port of Spain. Our clay or zapate (local name) soil here allows lime, cocoa and coconut trees to flourish in our backyards and estates.

J commented:

I *wish* we had "weeds" that looked as good as
the Zephyranthes here in the northeast!

Lee Robbins commented:

I once planted a bulb in the soil around a bougainvillea that spends summers outside in zone 4. i has multiplied in the 33 gal garbage pail over 15 years. One year it seeded and the similar pail holding bambusa ventricosa which sits next to it now periodically sprouts the fairly lilies too, A welcome volunteer, a weed in the northeast.

Carolina commented:

This plant is known in Peru and used in... gardening!

Tarcísio Eduardo commented:

Hi all,

I am a grower of Zephyranthes and Habranthus in southern Brazil and I would like to contact Flavia Bernard who lives in Trinidad. If anyone has an email contact, please send to me, I thank.
Tarcísio Eduardo Raduenz
Blumenau - South of Brazil - zephyrbrazil@hotmail.com

Leave a comment

Please share your comments about the photograph(s) and accompanying write-up. Telling a story about the subject of the photograph(s) is also much appreciated! If you have a gardening question, the best place to ask is on the UBC Botanical Garden Forums. Thank you!

" name="comments_form" id="comments-form" onsubmit="if (this.bakecookie.checked) rememberMe(this)">

« Previous entry: Polytrichum juniperinum | Main | Archives | Next entry: University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley »

a place of mind, The University of British Columbia

 
UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
6804 SW Marine Drive, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1Z4
Tel: 604.822.3928
Fax: 604.822.2016 Email: botg@interchange.ubc.ca

Emergency Procedures | Accessibility | Contact UBC | © Copyright The University of British Columbia