Monday, January 09, 2006

Name This Flower, Please!

Many years ago, I came across a gorgeous multi-headed flower that looked to me like a variation on the theme of Spider Lily. However, the owner of the garden in which the plant was growing didn't know its name (when I asked, he said, "Oh ... it's just a big lily!"). Ever since then, I've been VERY keen to know what it is. I kept looking out for it, but didn't see any more. Then I noticed that Delhi's IIC had a few clumps growing there -- and have been meaning to get around to taking pix to post them here. It's been about ... ooo ... two years? Since I first noticed them there? Well, finally, today, the syzygy of lily, me and digital camera occurred. Here are two pictures of the flower (one bunch in bud, and the other in bloom) and if anyone knows the creature's botanical name, I'll be very grateful if they would share it. Of course, I could probably find out from the IIC gardeners too ... but it's more fun this way!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

general grant once said - i know only 2 songs - one of them is "yankee doodle doo - and the other one isn't!". So i'd say what you have there isn't a rose.

btw
Someone out there either has too much spare time or is deadly at scrabble! check out these -

DORMITORY:
When you rearrange the letters: DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN:BEST IN PRAYER

DESPERATION:A ROPE ENDS IT

GEORGE BUSH:HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE:HERE COME DOTS

SLOT MACHINES:CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY:IS NO AMITY

MOTHERIN LAW: WOMAN HITLER

SNOOZE ALARMS:ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

A DECIMAL POINT:IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES: THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO:TWELVE PLUS ONE

PRESIDENT CLINTON OF THE USA:TO COPULATE HE FINDS INTERNS

gt

Unknown said...

Haha! Right -- well, that's one flower off the list. Another twenty million to go, I guess!

Okay, and return for your list, here's an amusement I got from the Asian Age, on January 1st:

A worldwide survey was conducted by the United Nations. The only question asked was: "Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure because ...
*In Africa, they didn't know what "food" meant.
*In India they didn't know what "honest" meant.
*In Europe they didn't know what "food shortage" meant.
*In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant.
*In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant.
*In South American they didn't know what "please" meant.
*In the United States they didn't know what "rest of the world" meant.

Anonymous said...

it looks like a lily of some sort.

Unknown said...

Oh -- well done! Now we've ruled out roses and aimed in the direction of lilies, we're really getting somewhere! All we need is a name ...

Anonymous said...

ok i queried god (ie internet) about the naming issue. lilies come from lilium (surprised?) and have atleast 90 perinneal bulbs.thousands of sites. hrrrrrmph.
spider lily is probably the closest you will get to this.

if you go to http://www.stjohnbeachguide.com/Lilly.htm and check out under “lily”

or go to
http://www.alohafriendsphotos.com/flowers3.html and check out "spider lily 7"

are the closest photos to your orphan that i picked up.

my suggestion is to look at the commonality in the two sites - leaves you with "lily" and "7". anyway spider is taken up by spiderman, lily is taken up by several girls touting their own sites so my tendency is to propose the name "7" for the name of your photo (doesnt even matter if its a boy flower or a girl flower.... i guesss since flowers are the sex organs of plants there should be an easy way of clearing this up but frankly - i can just about do this with humans and i believe theres all sorts of hermaphroditic issues here as far as the plant is concerned? or do flowers automatically mean - lady?).

on another road, people seem to name their kids from all sorts of sources - but i wonder why no one calls their kids with numbers - barring of course stuff like pope paul the 3rd or king henry the 8th kind of nomeneclature?

anyway - good luck with the 7s - (i saw - there were many more on the way)! gt

Unknown said...

I used to want to have a number as a name -- this was in the days when I was looking for a culture-neutral handle -- but of course numbers are also culture-positive, unless one permits oneself to be called e.g., "2" in ANY language rather than exclusively "two" or "deux" or whatever. And even so, such a name would identify the owner as, at the very least, a member of that well-known clan known as "E.C. Centric".

Am most grateful for your research into the lilium. So "giant spider lily" is what I'm gonna call it coz it certainly isn't like the lovelies at that Hawaiian website and it's bigger than any spider lily I've ever seen. BUT -- I've just checked the StJohn site -- and THAT'S IT!! That's the same flower. Definitely. Wow! Now we do at the very least have source for the lily -- the Caribbean. "Caribbean Spider Lily"! Kewl. The web ROCKS, huh?

Anonymous said...

One's gender these days is only a matter of one's opinion.

You might consider the transcendental number pi, if you don't object to its irrational nature.

Anonymous said...

regarding the statement about gender -
A man goes into hospital for a vasectomy. When he wakes up he's surrounded by several anxious looking doctors and asks nervously "Is there a problem?"

The head surgeon says gently, with tears in his eyes, "I'm afraid so... I'm sorry but your notes got mixed up and we've given you a sex change rather than a vasectomy."

The patient is devastated and shockingly replies, "Do you mean to say I'll never experience another erection?"

The surgeon pauses for a moment then says, "Well, you might, but it won't be yours."
---

and pai is a gr8 suggestion - i even had a maths teacher in school with that name! gt

Unknown said...

I suppose π is pronounced the same in all languages? I mean, in contrast to ordinary numbers, which have their own names in each language -- since π is a letter from the greek alphabet, presumably it's just pronounced "pi" (or as gt would have it, "pai") anywhere in the world.