This stunning flower is not only beautiful, it’s big. Lilium superbum (“superb lily”) is well named, standing 3-7 feet tall with a flower 3-4 inches wide and many flowers per plant. Unlike the non-native Tiger Lilies you see blooming by the road, the leaves of this plant are whorled around the stem and the petals curl back in the Turk’s cap shape that gives it its name. This picture shows two flowers, one behind the other.
Turk’s Cap Lilies are not common so when you find one you remember it. The first one I ever saw was blooming along the banks of the Youghiogeny River at Ohiopyle, July 1994. I’d love to see one this year.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
I seem to remember that they bloom profusely along the Hell’s Hollow trail at McConnell’s Mill state park…the only place I’ve ever seen them. A very lovely flower. If they are still blooming, perhaps I’ll see them on my trip to Ohiopyle in a few weeks.
A number of folks have seen Canada lily this summer too. Both the Turk’s cap and Canada are very beautiful.
There uses to be a nice area at Cedar Creek Park along the river where the main road intersects the bike trail before the county did the floodplain development.
There is a large group of the Turk’s Cap Lily’s down the street from me in Kansas. They are at the end of their blooming but they are still beautiful. I have taken quite a few pictures of them and I love them. I’ve gotten seeds from the plants and plan to plant them in my garden.