#3 Storm Lily

Common name: Storm Lily or Surprise Lily

Latin name: Unknown to me

What I know about this plant: deep-planted bulb; stalks with no greenery shoot up quite suddenly in early fall and open into clumps of from 3 to 5 blossoms; flowers are reddish pink and have long, narrow petals with ruffled edges and very long, spiky stamens; don't bloom every year (hence the "surprise" name)

Photos: William's hand picking a stalk that was growing by the mailbox. There were also several growing in a sort of semicircle near the chimney on the south side of the house, right in the lawn like these here, and I suppose a previous owner had maintained more cleared garden space than we do. I picked those by the chimney and hung them in the kitchen window with the hanging vase Virginia gave me. I was worried they would get mowed down. Fabian hadn't seen them, since he leaves for work when it's still dark, and he got all jealous like I had a visit from El Sancho (my mysterious nonexistant lover). I took him outside and showed him the stalks I had picked. He laughed and apologized and we marvelled at how quickly they had jumped up and bloomed!