Page 19 - St Giles Catesby booklet MC StG 20210723 e-flip_Neat

Catesby's lily, pine lily, leopard lily
To Mark Catesby, the "red lilly" that he placed in the same etching as
what he dubbed the "Wampum Snake" (identified now as the eastern
mudsnake, Farancia abacura), was of no special significance. He had
gathered it from "open moist Savannas" in South Carolina and had
noticed that each individual bulb produced on a single stalk just a
solitary flower "variously shaded with Red, Orange, and Lemmon
colours". The relatively large flowers, sometimes described as "spider-
like", appear in late summer and can seem out of proportion to the
slender stems of the plants. The main pollinators of this lily are the
swallowtail butterflies which inhabit the coastal plains where the lily
grows.

Lilium catesbaei was
named after Mark Catesby in
1788 by the English-born
American botanist Thomas
Walter (c. 1740–1789), who also
used Catesby's name in Latin
form for a gentian (Gentiana
catesbaei) known as Elliott's
gentian, and the fringed
campion (Silene catesbaei).
Catesby's lily has several
more familiar names – pine lily
and leopard lily. The lily's
natural habitats in the
southeastern USA range from
wet pine savanna to Sphagnum
bogs where it often grows with
the insectivorous pitcher-plants
(Sarracenia). Sadly, this is one of
Eastern screech-owl the most difficult lilies to
"The Little Owl [is] about the size of, or rather less than a Jack-daw; has cultivate and so it is very rare as
large pointed Ears; the Bill small, the Iris of the Eye of a deep yellow, or a garden plant.
Saffron colour ...", wrote Catesby. It is a wonderfully camouflaged
nocturnal bird, characterized by its call, described as a "mournful
'whinny', normally descending in pitch", although Catesby made no
mention of this attribute.