What is a lily?
When I started growing lilies, somewhere around the 10-11yr mark, it was impressed upon me that only members of the genus Lilium were true lilies. But I was raised in a scholarly, proper plant-collecting lady household. We used proper GASP! latin names and read Royal Horticultural Society journals. We also wore gumboots, pulled stuck calves out of labouring cows, bathed in muddy creek water and had dirt under our nails. This, I thought, was pretty normal.
Apparently, it isn't. Apparently, a lily is any damn thing you wish to call a lily. But a rose is a rose. Unless it's an Adenium or a Hibiscus. Now, there's a limit to the confusion around names I can withstand, because names are Special Things. I'm an aspie, you see, and ask any aspie: we have Special Things. And one of the unwritten rules that the world at large does not seem to understand, is One May Not Violate The Sanctity of Special Things. But! Plants are also Special Things. More than that, they are people. And I want to talk about my people. What am I to do?
Well, I slowly learned that in order to talk about the people I love (Plants) with people who also love Plants, (but weren't raised on the same latin-at-breakfast cereal of life), I have had to call them (Plants!) by any variety of romantic (irony, the Romans spoke latin...) handles. Not that I lack imagination. I love the wild and fabulous imagery of so many common names. I mean... Grim-the-Collier (Pilosella aurantiaca, Hieracium aurantiacum), how awesome is that? Ohhh, taxonomists changing names... obviously, the Name-I-Learned-It-By-First is the Right Name. So let's not go there :p
Umm, oh, right. I later learned to call a Lilium a lily... and I learned to call many other plants lilies. I may cringe inside, but I call them lilies. I'm announcing to the world, I love lilies. All sorts. I also love taking pictures of lilies. Very recently I acquired my first ever 'real' digital camera, and in utter ignorance am out to teach myself to take real photos (except, well, they're not really, are they?)
So! In learning to make digital images of my beloved friends, I managed to get a shot of Nerine 'Gloaming' that I really rather like. Ooohh, I'll put it in the ATP* data base, thoughts I; I want to share it. Search.... plant-specific databases? Nerine. Nerine? Nerine where are you? Do Americans not grow Nerines? Whole sections for, oh I don't know, Anise hyssops? How many different Anise hyssops can there be? But no Nerine. *sigh*
Wait, let's just type in "Nerine"... oh! What? "Guernsey Lily"? "Cape Lily"? "Cape Flower"?
So, what is a lily? A Nerine is a lily, silly. I love lilies.
Nerine 'Gloaming'
*ATP, I say! Not, never NGA! ATP stands for Adenosine Triphosphate, without which we would die, while NGA stands for, oh, I don't know... No Good Acronym. So there.
