Florida Swamp Lily

The Florida Swamp Lily (Crinum americanum) is one of the most beautiful of Florida's wetland plants. Add fragrance to the list of qualifiers, and this flower might be the winner.
It's a Florida native commonly found in wet habitats — wetlands, moist hammocks and along streams and rivers throughout much of the Sunshine State. It's one of four members of Crinum that are found in Florida, but the only one that's native to the state and likely the only one that's to be encountered in the wild. Its native range includes a good chunk of the southeastern United States, from North Carolina to Texas, and Arkansas. It's also found in Cuba and Jamaica.
Bloom time for swamp lily is spring through fall in cooler parts of its range, year round in South Florida. It also goes dormant in winter in the north. The fruit is a fleshy, green pod, but it is poisonous and should not be eaten.

Other common names for swamp lily include string lily, seven sisters, crinum lily and southern swamplily (sometimes spelled swamp-lily). One fun fact: it's called seven sisters because some say the shape of the flower clusters resemble the shape of the Pleides, a star cluster found in Orion's belt, according to noted naturalist Roger Hammer. One other name-related factoid: Crinum is Greek for lily and Americanum is of America. What you have is lily of America.

_DSC4743caf3.JPG
Read less