Toad lily
Tricyrtis lasiocarpa
It was early in the morning….a sunny Monday morning, when Mark Weathington of the JC Raulston Arboretum and I sped down the winding roads of Alishan mountain on the island of Taiwan, when out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of blue. Could it be we had just found one of my favorite fall-flowering plants in its’ native haunt? Botanizing at 55 is a natural gift that I and several of my horticultural traveling companions have honed over decades of plant exploration.
Slamming on brakes, however, was out of the question, but thankfully, we soon spied a roadside turnoff allowed us to turn around and retrace our drive back to the x-spot in question…finally locating a reasonably safe place to get out of the traffic lane and explore. No sooner that we got out of the van, we had a eureka moment. There it was…Tricyrtis lasiocarpa in all its glory. We had already found the other two native toad lilies of Taiwan, Tricyrtis formosana and the newly named Tricyrtis ravenii.
I had long had a love affair with Tricyrtis lasiocarpa…even before I knew its’ real name. Gardeners know Tricyrtis as toad lilies, but this toad lily was special to me.
It was probably at least three decades earlier, when my friend John Elsley brought this gem to America, and sold it through the Wayside catalog, where he worked at the time…under the now erroneous name of Tricyrtis formosana var. amethystina…a similar, but stoloniferous toady lily from Taiwan. It was John’s catalog photo that caught my attention…the unique glowing cobalt blue on the tip of the petals to be specific…unlike any toad lilies I’d seen before or since.
I never got that image out of my mind, and years later when we purchased our first house, Tricyrtis lasiocarpa was one of the first plants I acquired for my shade garden. It grew and flowered well…at least I thought it grew well, until my encounter with it in the wild. Unlike wild growing tricyrtis that I’d seen years earlier in Korea, Tricyrtis lasiocarpa didn’t grow in the woods. There it was, in fact, growing in rock cracks on a partially sunny bank, and looking none the worse for wear. I was able to return home with seed, and when the resulting plants were large enough, I planted them in a bed that received a few hours of morning sun. The reward next season was toad lilies unlike anything I’d grown previously.
The sturdy non-running clumps of thick, upright stems top out at 3’ tall, ending with terminal sprays of 1” orchid-like flowers with patterns of purple, white, and blue. Tricyrtis lasiocarpa is incredibly easy to grow, and once it begins flowering in mid-July, doesn’t stop before late summer/early fall. Although it’s amazingly tolerant of adverse conditions, rich compost and slightly moist soils produce the most spectacular plants. Speaking of which, I’d better grab the camera…it’s toad lily time.
– Tony Avent
