There’s been a strappy leafed plant popping up for at least five years since I put the front walkway in. It faithfully reemerges each spring, but only grows leaves and nothing more. Then it dies back to the ground each winter. It has been getting gradually larger, but no flowers ever bloomed. At first, I thought it was some sort of palm. Then it started looking more like a crinum lily. Could it be an amaryllis?
When I google lensed it, it brought up agapanthus. But, this is growing near a few lily of the nile plants and I knew it couldn’t be that. The leaves weren’t as long as a crinum lily either. I’m not going to lie, as much as I hate killing plants, most of the “volunteer” plants I get here, as romantic as I am thinking that they’re something cool that I got for free, without fail they’re always on the class one highly invasive noxious weed list! I thought it might have to go… however, it wasn’t hurting anything, so I just left it.
Five years had passed and then yesterday, IT HAD BUDS!!! They were long thin buds with what appeared to be white flowers still wrapped up tightly. I thought it for sure it would be a crinum lily.
Well, the next day it finally bloomed! Much to my surprise, it is a TEXAS SPIDER LILY. For the life of me I don’t remember planting that at all. I know I went to Texas maybe five or six years ago… but I brought back wildflower seeds for sure. I don’t remember getting seeds for this but anything is possible. Anyway, it’s beautiful and well worth the wait!
Apparently, they are wildflowers in Texas that inhabit pond areas. From my research I see that they like extremely wet springs and very dry summers… which is the opposite of what we get here. It seems they bloom in the spring, but this bulb bloomed for me in September. And, it isn’t really a lily. It is in the Amaryllis family.
