One of the great things about living in Florida are all the gorgeous plants and flowers. Some of them, like my passion fruit flowers, are very exotic looking. Another exotic looking flower is the spider lily (Crinum asiaticum). These flowers are also known as the giant crinum lily, grand crinum lily, poison bulb plant, or giant spider lily. In case you couldn’t tell from many of those names, both the plants and the flowers can get quite large. The plants can grow to between four and six feet tall and the flowers are usually four or five inches across. Spider lilies are native to India, east Asia, Australia, and many of the Pacific Islands, but they grow in many parts of the world now because of their use as ornamentals. Here in Florida, they are considered a naturalized species and can and do grow in the wild, although the majority of them are still in gardens.

The lily flowers in these images are on a wild growing plant near my neighborhood. Several people in the area have these flowers in their gardens, but this one grows in the woods on a vacant lot. They will blossom most of the summer until it starts to get cooler in the fall. After the first frost all the leaves will die back, but the bulb will sprout again in the spring. This plant has bloomed on that lot for as long as I have lived here. I’ve always admired the flowers, but until recently never photographed them. I took these one morning after it had rained the night before. There was dew on everything adding a little shine to these already amazing flowers.