Tigridia: aka Mexican Shell Flower

This beauty is also known as Mexican daylily, sacred Aztec lily, sacred tiger lily, peacock flower, tiger flower, and flower of Tigris. How interesting. I know just how it feels carrying around so many different names. I recently had some business with my bank last week in which I was asked to sign two different documents verifying that I had used a string of various aliases and that I was indeed same and said person. The lists went something like this:

first name, maiden name
first name, middle initial, maiden name
first name, middle name, maiden name
first name, married name . . . blah, blah, blah! Tiresome.

The other thing I have in common with tigridia is that we both are lovers of warm weather, tigridia more so than me which leads to a parting of our ways. Whereas I can withstand temperatures below 22 degrees, albeit not for long, Tigridia cannot---oh, really??? Guess again. The tigridia in the above picture is three years old or, it's been planted for the last three years against the south facing foundation wall of our house. (I have no idea how old the corm was when I bought it.) The first year, it sent out three leaves and a single flower. The second year it doubled in size, put up a few more leaves and flowered both yellow and orange flowers. This past season, it flowered pink, yellow, orange, and red---one to two flowers at a time. Yes, it is definitely an anomaly.

In fact, it is an anomaly in more ways than one. Tigridia is sparsely planted by gardeners because its bloom lasts only one day. I can attest to that. I've learned to get my camera the moment I see it in bloom or else I'll forget and have to wait another year to take its picture. That's how fragile its flowers are.

The particular species pictured is actually Tigridia T. Pavonia. It's one of 23 species native to South and Central America. The foliage is spiky but thin and flowers are borne on delicate stems. In the wild, tigridia are naturally pollinated by hummingbirds. They are easily cultivated as long as they are planted in well drained soil in full sun, zone 8.

So why am I able to grow tigridia here in zone 5 without lifting the corm from the ground each fall? Just a guess but, my tigridia is planted beneath the voluminous, leafy skirt of a hemerocallidaceae (daylily). In the fall, I don't cut the daylily back but allow its foliage to decompose back into the ground. Maybe that foliage protects the tigridia corm. Secondly, the tigridia corm is planted close to the south facing foundation wall. And when it is in bloom, I notice how the praying mantis and honey bees in my garden tend to favor it. As exotic as an orchid, tigridia always gets plenty of oohs and aahs!