The Stolen Lily

Last fall I explored an old house site in the Virginia woods, probably abandoned around the time of the Civil War. Growing near the stone house foundation I found a small cluster of blackberry lilies. I wondered if they could possibly have survived on the site for so long, so I asked my paleoethnobotanist friend. She said, absolutely, and she sent me a link to a study of a garden abandoned in the late 1700s where several old ornamental plants were still growing. So this little colony of lilies might have been more than 150 years old.

Since this spot was slated to become a factory within a few years, I dug up three corms and took them home to plant in my garden. One of them survived the winter, and it is now blooming. So this stubborn colony lives on in a new place.