Taxonomy
Family: Liliaceae
Habitat
Moist to wet meadows. Swampy woods.
Associates
Distribution
New England and adjacent Canada, south to GA, west to IN, KY, TN, OK.
Morphology
Erect, herbaceous perennial to a little over 1 m high. Leaves lanceolate to linear-elliptic, to 15 cm long, in whorls of 4-12, the uppermost sometimes alternate. Flowers 1-2(5), nodding on long pedicels; tepals 6, narrow, acuminate, spreading to slightly recurved, yellow to orange-red with purplish spots; anthers barely exserted.
Notes
Flowers June to August.
Wetland indicator: Facultative +
The stems of this species are smooth and somewhat waxy. Gleason & Cronquist call this plant Wild Yellow Lily, and while the flowers of this species are said to be typically yellow, all of the plants growing in the swamp where these were photographed (Central NY) were orange-red. The last image shows the flower bud in early development, about a week before anthesis.
References
Gleason, Henry A. and A. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of
Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Second Ed.
The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY.
Michael Hough © 2009 |