This toad lily, Tricytris ‘Sinonome’ is my new favorite plant in the garden. Blooming in August through October, it’s tolerant of early frosts and it takes full shade, which is a must in BCM’s subterranean terraced garden. The coloring is so mottled and the structure of the flower is so architectural that it inspires some pretty ‘flowery’ comparisons:

Its style (as in a plant’s sexual parts) looks like a giraffe’s neck, its anthers look like the eyes on a slug, its stamens arch like showerheads, and its six differently shaded petals (actually tepals) alternate like men and women at a dinner table. This whole surrealistic fantasy stands on three pairs of green rubber boots (swollen spurs that are part of the petals), which, kicked three times, reveal the source of the plant’s Latin name: tri, meaning three, and kyrtos, meaning humped.

- Ketzel Levine, Talking Plants, NPR