[Illustration: SMALL RAIN LILY GIANT RAIN LILY]
Plants with bulbs or fibrous roots; leaves basal; sepals 3, petal-like;
petals 3, sepals and petals united into a tube below; stamens 6; ovary
inferior, 3-celled.
Small or Drummond’s Rain Lily (_Cooperia drummondii_) is known in
cultivation as evening star. It does not have a stalked seed pod like
the giant rain lily and has smaller flowers with much longer tube and
shorter and narrower leaves. It blooms in the late summer and fall.
The cooperias were named in honor of Joseph Cooper, an English gardener.
Drummond’s rain lily honors Thomas Drummond, a Scottish plant collector
who visited the southeastern part of Texas in 1833-34.
Giant Rain Lily (_Cooperia pedunculata_) has lovely fragrant white
flowers which last only a day or two. The tubular flowers appear
funnel-shaped for some hours after opening, but the six broad lobes
spread widely as the flowers mature. The leaves are all basal and grow
from a large black-coated bulb; they are about a foot long and nearly
half an inch wide. Shortly after heavy rains in spring and early summer,
lawns, meadows, and woods in Louisiana, Texas, and Mexico are covered
with the lovely blossoms. It is also called prairie lily, field lily,
crow poison, and fairy lily.
[Illustration: COPPER LILY YELLOW STAR GRASS]
Copper Lily. Texas Atamosco Lily. Stagger Grass (_Zephyranthes texana_)
is a copper-colored lily blooming in August and September in Central
Texas. The inner surface of the petals is yellow and shows a purple
veining. The flowers stalks are 6-12 inches long, growing from a cluster
of very slender leaves. The yellow atamosco (_Zephyranthes longifolia_)
has yellow flowers. It may be found in West Texas to Arizona and Mexico
in the late summer and fall.
Yellow Star Grass (_Hypoxis erecta_) has yellow flowers about an inch
broad. It is one of the earliest and commonest spring flowers in the
eastern pine woods, blooming in Texas in March and April.
The common century plant of the Big Bend is _Agave havardiana_. It is
not as large as the widely cultivated American century plant introduced
from Mexico. A candelabrum-like cluster of yellow flowers, which are
provided with a vast quantity of nectar, grows at the top of a stout
stalk, which is commonly 12-15 feet high. The stalk grows from a cluster
of broad gray leaves, 1-1½ feet long, bordered with recurved prickles
and ending in a sharp-pointed spine. Lecheguilla (_Agave lecheguilla_)
is a much smaller plant with narrow spikes of greenish-white flowers.
[Illustration: TEXAS SPIDER LILY]
Texas Spider Lily (_Hymenocallis galvestonensis_) grows in moist soil,
in ditches, or on the edges of ponds. It is particularly abundant on the
coastal prairie. A thick, fleshy flower stalk grows from a cluster of
strap-shaped leaves about an inch broad and bears 4—6 white flowers in a
cluster at the top of the stalk. The scientific name means “beautiful
membrane” and refers to the delicate white funnel-tube uniting the bases
of the 6 stamens. The 3 linear petals and the three similar sepals are
about 6 in. long, united at their lower half into a slender tube. The
upper half spreads, giving rise to the common name of spider lily. The
flowers bloom from March to May. It was long ago introduced into
cultivation and is considered quite hardy in the North.
Western Spider Lily (_Hymenocallis occidentalis_) has similar flowers,
but blooms in the summer after the leaves die back. It is found in moist
soil and on shaded hillsides from Northeast Texas to Indiana and
Georgia.