Surprise Lily Lycoris squamigera: Sudden Pink White Flowers in July

Summary: Surprise Lily (Lycoris squamigera) is popular as an ornamental bulb outside homelands in China and Japan. It opens large pink flowers long after leaves die.

Lycoris squamigera's lookalike ~ Belladonna Lily (Amaryllis belladonna), Coonabaraban, north central New South Wales, southeastern Australia: Vivian Evans, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Lycoris squamigera (Ly-kor-iss skwahm-ee-ger-uh) is an Old World herbaceous plant in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, that claims homelands in eastern Asia. Lycoris squamigera is native to China and parts of Japan.

Successfully introduced and naturalized far beyond its native range, the stunningly flowered plant is cultivated globally as an ornamental.

Lycoris squamigera was introduced to the United States in 1861 by way of a shipment to American historian and leading horticulturist Francis Parkman Jr. (Sept. 16, 1823–Nov. 8, 1893) in Boston, Massachusetts, from George Rogers Hall (March 1820–Dec. 24, 1899). Hailing from Bristol, Rhode Island, George Rogers Hall embarked for China soon after his 1846 graduation from Harvard Medical School, practiced medicine for almost half a decade in the eastern Chinese historic port of Shanghai, cultivated gardens in Shanghai and in the east central Japanese bustling port of Yokohama, and made a career switch to collecting and trading Asian art and plants.

The genus name of Lycoris honors the poetical name of mime actress Cytheris, mistress of Roman poet-politician Gaius Cornelius Gallus (ca. 70–26 BCE), who was inspired to dedicate four books of elegies to her.

The species name, squamigera (Latin: squamiger, “scaly, scale-bearing”), spotlights unique truncate scales in the throat of the flower’s tube, just above the insertion point of the stamens.

Lycoris squamigera is known commonly in English as Hall’s amaryllis, magic lily, resurrection lily or surprise lily.

Lycoris squamigera also shares the common names of naked lady and naked lady lily with lookalike Belladonna Lily (Amaryllis belladonna). The naked lady designation recognizes the solo, stark appearance of the flowers atop their tall scape, unadorned by leaves.

Surprise Lilies prefer open habitats such as meadows, open wooded areas, and yards. They especially thrive in the shade of trees.

Surprise Lilies create surprise by way of the seemingly overnight appearance of their large floral stem during the leaves' dormancy. Round-tipped footlong basal leaves, with a strappy resemblance to daffodil foliage, emerge in spring but die before summer, leaving no traces and no indication of the plant’s vibrant underground bulb.

By mid-July a leafless, sturdy stem, known as a scape, shoots over 2 feet (0.6 meters) up from the quiet ground. The light green scape is topped with clusters of five to eight large buds, gorgeous in their own right with dark magenta coloring.

Within one week of the scape’s emergence, buds open as pleasingly pink or white large flowers. Each showy flower traces graceful curves with six wavy-edged tepals, comprised of three petals and their three lookalike sepals. Flowers keep their blooms through August and sometimes beyond.

Lycoris squamigera surprised me by appearing magically in my yard about seven years ago, about 2 feet (0.6 meters) from the north side of the box elder (Acer negundo) tree that marks the eastern perimeter of my upper north terrace’s shade garden.

In 2015 Lycoris squamigera has surprised me anew by presenting a second plant 9 inches (0.75 feet; 0.22 meters) south of the first plant. Surprise Lilies tend to put forth offsets, or small new bulbs around the mother bulb, that account for glorious profusion aboveground, especially as unfettered, wild plants.

The older plant, with five gorgeous magenta buds, opened its first flower of 2015 on Tuesday, July 21, and opened four more over the next two days. Within one week, all buds on both plants have opened fully.

The placement of Lycoris squamigera prettifies the landscape of the shade garden. Eleven exquisite flowers perfectly catch shafts of sunlight breaking through the canopy formed by the shade garden’s arboreal duet of box elder (Acer negundo) to the east and silver maple (Acer saccharinum) to the west.

Lycoris squamigera flowering in garden of botanist Robert R. Koval, Madison, south central Wisconsin, August 2009: James Steakley, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Lycoris squamigera's lookalike ~ Belladonna Lily (Amaryllis belladonna), Coonabaraban, north central New South Wales, southeastern Australia: Vivian Evans, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amaryllis_belladonna_(3).jpg

Lycoris squamigera flowering in garden of botanist Robert R. Koval, Madison, south central Wisconsin, August 2009: James Steakley, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lycoris_squamigera_Madison,_Wisconsin.jpg

For further information:

Creech, John L. “Expeditions for New Horticultural Plants.” Arnoldia, Vol. 26, No. 8 (September 23, 1966): 49-53.
Available @ http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/1966-26--expeditions-for-new-horticultural-plants.pdf

Howe, James M., Jr. “George Rogers Hall, Lover of Plants.” Journal of the Arnold Arboretum, vol. IV, no. 2 (April 1923): 91–98.

“Lycoris.” Backyard Gardener > Garden Dictionary.
Available @ http://www.backyardgardener.com/gardendictionary/Lycoris.html

“Lycoris squamigera.” CybeRose & Bulbs > Amaryllis and Other Geophytes > Lycoris.
Available @ http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Amaryllis/L_squamigera1890.html

Martin, Deborah L. Rodale's Basic Organic Gardening: A Beginner's Guide to Starting a Healthy Garden. New York NY: Rodale Inc., 2014.

“New or Little Known Plants: Lycoris squamigera.” Garden and Forest, vol. III (April 9, 1890): 176–177.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34428080

Shields, James E. “The Amaryllis Family: Genus Lycoris.” Shields Gardens > Amaryllids. Last revised: 14 February 2013.
Available @ http://www.shieldsgardens.com/amaryllids/lycoris.html

“Tab. 7547: Lycoris squamigera.” Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, vol. 123 [ser. 3, vol. 53] (1897): t. 7547.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/450254

Tucker, Janice. “Resurrection Lily: Lycoris squamigera.” Santa Fe Botanical Garden > September.
Available @ http://www.santafebotanicalgarden.org/september-2010/