In the midst of Summer, the leopard flower, or blackberry-lily, Belamcanda chinensis, which belongs to the iris family, is bravely opening, continually, a one-day-old flower that is freely spotted with red on orange or yellow, from which the name is derived.
Leopard Flower: Native in China and Japan
The leopard flower is native to China and Japan, and a “garden favorite” in American gardens.
When plant hunting in the mountains, I come across, often, in odd places in dry or wet and under sun or dense shade, the plant which is very much praised as cut flowers, particularly for flower arrangements.
But for such purposes, several garden varieties are mostly used. These varieties are dwarfer in stature, and the stem is curved, having yellow or orange flowers.
Wild-Type Species
I prefer the wild-type species; if it is grown in gardens, it develops a straight four or more foot stem on which some six to ten leaves, one to one and one-half feet long, appear on both sides, expanding obliquely and equitably.
This peculiarity of the leopard flower is pleasant to look at.
Acclimatization Garden
It is of easy culture, thriving in sandy loam and full sun. In our Acclimatization Garden, the fine-looking clumps, grown in one of the driest and heaviest of clay soils, attain a height of five feet three inches.
All the odd plants in the odd places are, it seems to me, the ones that came from the seeds which were distributed by birds, as far as our district is concerned.
44659 by Kan Yashiroda