From “Perennials for Summer Bloom” in Sunbelt Gardening: Success in Hot-Weather Climates by Tom Peace:
“Blackberry lily (Belamcanda chinensis) is, despite its deceptive common name, actually a member of the iris family. Vigorous, healthy fans of leaves arise from a small rhizome that expands only slowly over time and grows to two feet tall before blooming….
“The valuable foliage is then embellished by open, branched flower stalks rising above the leaves, producing a succession of orange-and-red-spotted, six-petaled blooms. (Hybrids called candy lilies expand the color range to yellow and purples.)
“The effect is like slow-motion fireworks, but the show doesn’t stop there. Swollen seedpods develop through late summer and split open in fall to reveal berrylike clusters of shiny black seeds. These readily germinate the following spring, increasing the size of Belamcanda colonies.”
From “Blackberry Lily” in Lilies and Related Flowers by Brian Mathew, illustrations by Pierre-Joseph Redoute:
“This showy member of the iris family is very closely allied to the true irises and indeed will hybridize with Iris dichotoma to produce a remarkable range of intermediate offspring. Belamcanda chinensis is the only species in the genus. The flower, with its six equal perianth segments and three slender style branches, is in fact quite different in structure from that of an iris, in which the six perianth segment are separated into falls and standards and the style branches are flattened and petal-like. The fruits also are rather distinctive, with capsules opening to reveal large black seeds; hence the name Blackberry Lily used in some countries.
“Like Iris, Belamcanda produces a fan of flat leaves from a small rhizome and in summer sends up a branching flower stem from the centre of the leaf cluster. This stem can reach 2.5 metres in wild specimens, but it is usually much less than this in cultivation. Each flower is of rather short duration, but because there is a succession of them, quite a striking display is produced over a considerable period of time. Although individual plants are usually short-lived, seeds are freely produced and the young plants rapidly reach maturity. Belamcanda is a native of China, Japan, Taiwan and the Himalayan region….
“The root has been used to cure sore throats and fevers and is also recommended as an antidote to poisons, in particular the bite of a cobra.”
Hello!
I had never really thought of these flowers as “slow-motion fireworks” — as they’re described in the first quotation above — but, you know, the description fits. And it fairly well applies to my photos below of Iris domestica from Oakland Cemetery’s gardens, where these little delights tend to grow at the very outer edges of tree-shade, so pick up a lot of filtered sunlight or backlighting. The result is that they glow against dark backgrounds, and the camera does a nice job of capturing the flower petal highlights while keeping the colors and shapes of the stems and buds intact.
As is often the case with popular flowers, you can choose a common name for this one from a long list. Leopard Lily, Leopard Flower, or Blackberry Lily are frequently used, but you could also pick Candy Lily, Freckle Face, Butterfly Lily, or Fire Lily; or replace “lily” with “iris” and have a whole new set of names. They all reflect either the color pattern or shape of the flowers, or (for Blackberry Lily) the plant’s habit of producing fat seedpods that turn black late in the season. “Lily” has stuck as part of the plant’s moniker, though — as we all know, don’t we? — it’s actually an iris. Iris domestica is its proper current scientific name; but that’s a recent enough development in botanical history that the previous scientific name — Belamcanda chinensis — hangs around in a lot of botany or gardening books and other sources. I wrote about the name change history last year: see Iris Domestica, the Leopard Flower or Blackberry Lily (1 of 3) if you would like to read more about it.
With that previous set of photos, I also wrote about encountering these irises shortly after a long-duration high-wind thunderstorm had passed through the neighborhood, bending many of them to the ground. Some had obviously been broken or uprooted, with the flowers still intact, stems split like cut flowers in a vase. I wondered if they’d return this year, so was glad to find them — even as a less robust crop than I had seen previously. Then again, the presence of fewer flowers gave me a chance to capture singular stems and flowers against their shaded black or dark green backgrounds, so for The Photographer, that worked out nicely.
Thanks for taking a look!
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Yes, slow-motion fireworks. Lovely!
Thank you! They’re so tiny — yet so bright and flashy. And one of my favorite flower discoveries that I try to find again each year.