Today's images are again courtesy of Hugh and Carol Nourse@Flickr, of Georgia, USA (original image 1 | original image 2 via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool). Both were taken earlier this year, in mid-July. Thank you!
Within North America, Turk's-cap lily is the largest lily east of the Rocky Mountains. It is also the tallest species of lily in North America, sometimes reaching 2.8m (9 ft.).The species ranges over much of the eastern USA, occupying a number of habitats from near sea-level to 1600m (5250 ft.). As shown in the first photograph with the accompanying Papilio glaucus (eastern tiger swallowtail), swallowtail butterflies are pollinators for this species--in fact, the primary pollinators.
Missouri Botanical Garden has a small factsheet on Lilium superbum, including some advice for cultivating it. Another description of the species with additional photographs is available via Illinois Wildflowers: Lilium superbum.
Botany / physics resource link: "Harvard researchers, captivated by a strange coiling behavior in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly". Read more about Clues in the Cucumber's Climb.
There's more than one way to pronounce that epithet!
Either way, it's superb! LOL
Beautiful photo, again.
Thanks for the links to its cultivation. That's really useful info for us gardeners who are on the lookout for pollinator-friendly plants.
I continue to love your site and now look forward to your posts every day.
What a treat!
Jess
Thanks to the Nourses for the gorgeous photos, and to Daryl for the giggle!
thank you for the lilys that adorn our world
and as far as we know they are exclusive
to our world so do stay around and shop
beautiful picture just beautiful we need
to plant flowers to attract more butterflies
Nice photos, thank you, and perfect timing for this posting; I was just wondering out loud to a friend about what might pollinate L. superbum.
It also leaves me puzzled, as I've had a slowly increasing (from 3 to 7) clump for maybe 7 or 8 years, and they have never set seed....yet we also have many, many swallowtails in the garden during their bloom period (about a month after L. canadense). Perhaps it's the lily height of about 8 feet? Maybe I've misidentified the species? Anyway, hummingbirds get there!
Thank you for this great picture
Thank you for the beautiful lily photos. I believe the butterfly is correctly identified as Pipevine Swallowtail which uses Aristolochia macrophylla Dutchman's Pipe or Virginia snakeroot A. serpentaria in the Eastern U.S.
It is true that the female Eastern Black Swallowtail is similar in pattern but it is a mimic of the Pipevine SWT. The feeding on Pipevine leaves the butterfly adult and caterpillar distasteful. Birds avoid this pattern in consequence.
The pattern difference is that 7 red dots for Pipevine and 8 dotes for other mimic forms. White spots also part of identifying pattern. Eleanor
This is so beautiful! Thank you!