Description
(Snake Lily, Twining Brodiaea)
A fascinating plant which bowled me over when we first made each others acquaintance on a campsite near Yosemite in California. Unique in appearance with a tongue-in-cheek humour to it. Totally leafless by flowering time it scrambles through and winds itself around any bushes growing near it. It needs these for support and to display its flowers at a good height. The amount of support available controls the height it will reach. This contorted, twining stem is typically 60-80 cm long but is recorded exceptionally at 1.5 metres long. However we have had it easily reach 2.5m tall here at which point it escaped the greenhouse vents and continued its growth outside of the greenhouse (though hardy, we grow it covered, to keep off excess winter rain).
Larger corms will make more height and also several stems per corm, each bearing flowers over a long period. The flowers are carried in a tight ball from 40mm up to 90mm across atop of the long thin twining stems. The individual flowers are bright soft-pink with a darker central vein, they are “waisted” with the petal bases fused to make an inflated tube. The upper portion of the petals then become separate for an equal length. Each flower is 13mm long on a pedicel about 20mm long. Abundant sticky nectar, present inside the tube, is strongly honey-scented. There are only 3 anthers; the “missing” 3 have become sterile and white and make 3 staminodes which are forked at the tips. All filaments are fused into the basal (tube) area of the petal that they relate to and in the case of the fertile anthers the filament has extended sideways and upwards to make a small hood beyond the anther.
It flowers from May onward until July and then, after flowering and seed set it then dies away totally back to its Crocus-like corm.
A very unusual and attractive plant and one of the very few climbing bulbs in existence!
Raised from seed which I originally collected with the late Wayne Roderick (Christian & Roderick 910) in Amador County, California in June 1989, since when this stock has been to Netherlands and France before returning to us here! In the wild it is recorded from clay and granite soils on bushy or open slopes below 800m from north to south California but not outside of that state. Diploid and tetraploid forms are known.
