Blackberry Lily Life Cycle

Earlier this season (August) I was happy to show you that my renewed weeding seemed to have energized the Blackberry Lily to grow and flower. I blogged about all this once before, but it was 13 years ago, so I don't feel that I'm unnecessarily duplicating. Besides, I learned something new. Two things, actually.

Their bloom seasons didn't overlap by much, but the Blackberry Lily and the 'Young Love' daylily sure looked nice together.

The Blackberry Lily isn't a lily and it isn't a blackberry. It's more related to iris. In fact, I just learned that it's been moved to the Iris genus and is now Iris domestica Formerly, it was Belamcanda punctata or chinensis. That "punctata" is a clue to its other common name, Leopard Lily, because of the spots. It seems to have had almost as many names as spots. Wikipedia lists 7 other taxonomic names for the same plant. "Chinensis" tells you that it is native to eastern Asia.

Here's a closer picture of one flower. I really like how the petals (yes, 6 petals, not 3 petals and 3 tepals or bracts- I checked) on mine seem to alternate between brighter and darker orange. I don't see this in all the pictures I find online. There is also a variety that is all yellow, but I like the spots.

I've been waiting for some of the seed pods to open to show you why it gets one of its common names. Sure does look like a nice fat blackberry! But it's not. You can also see in these two pictures how much the seed pod looks like the 3-sided iris pods if you let those go to seed.

Here's the other thing I learned this year. They aren't black when they first begin to open. The seeds start out as light orange.

I'm going to transplant one of these that moved itself more into the yard than the flower bed, and I may sprinkle some of the seeds around. If this plant is going to be happy for me, I'd like more of it instead of just a couple of loner stalks.

Another beautiful weather day! I'm pretty happy with my new computer. The processor is MUCH faster, and it's smaller which I like. I'll still be discovering things from time to time that aren't quite transferred. Today, I learned that I needed to bring over some fonts I use regularly. Probably Windows wiped out all my custom ones. But I have them all in several locations.

See Back to the Blackberry Lily for the previous similar post