Talking Plants

The native lilac lily, Schelhammera undulata , is likely to be overlooked until it flowers. Most of the year it is barely a foot (30 centimetres) high and easily lost among local and weedy herbs on the forest floor. It's a locally native plant here in the Southern Highlands, as it is along much of the south-eastern coast of mainland Australia. I photographed it flowering a few weeks ago, in the Australian spring, beside the Box Vale walking track near Mittagong.  The lilac lily is a close relative of the autumn crocus, Colchicum autumnale,  and grouped with it and 13 other genera in the plant family Colchicaceae. But not of the source of saffron, the commonly called saffron (or sometimes confusingly also 'autumn') crocus, Crocus sativus - grouped with iris in the family Iridaceae. While lilac lily is found only in Australia, a second species from north-eastern Australia extends through to Malaysia and I think the Philippines. That's it for the genus. The flower, which i...