What is This?

Can You Identify This Flower or plant?

I thought it might be fun to post some flower or plant pictures from time-to-time to see if anyone out there can identify any of them.  Some of these I may already know or suspect what they are and some I will not know.  Some of these plants may be growing in my garden but I do not know their name or classification while some will be growing elsewhere.

I need your help identifying them so I will provide some pictures and as much information about these plants as I have available to me. There are a number of websites that can help us identify plants, vegetables and flowers which I do use occasionally. Now let’s get started and see if you can name any of them!

This flower has been blooming in my garden for about 7 or 8 years and continues to be more beautiful every year. The first year these bloomed in late September and into October; however, they have bloomed in other years as early as mid July. 

Where did I get these bulbs?

I got these bulbs in a bunch of other random bulbs from my son who at the time he was working for a landscape company while in college. He got them after one of their fall landscape jobs at a customer site where several crates of bulbs were left over when the project was completed. The company was putting the unused bulbs into a dumpster and of course my son knew if I found out what they had done I would totally freak out! He talked with his boss and got permission to get some of those bulbs to bring home to his mom.  Oh how delighted and surprised I was when he came home for the holidays and brought me two five-gallon buckets overflowing with gorgeous bulbs! What a great time I had that December planting those bulbs, I think I counted well over 300 bulbs in all.

I could identify all of the bulbs in the buckets with the exception of these 4 or 5 which were very big and looked a lot like amaryllis or hippeastrum bulbs. So I planted them in an area that gets good morning sunshine and has rich soil hoping they would be happy there.

The following spring these bulbs sent up lush, green strap-like basal leaves but no flowers.  Yes, the leaves did look a lot like my amaryllis which made me even more anxious to see what their blooms would look like. They didn’t bloom that spring or that summer so I figured I would have to wait a year or so for them to bloom. Then in mid-September they began to send up thick stalks that had clusters of small white buds on the end. I could hardly contain my excitement! Then, when the blooms finally opened I was amazed how beautiful and unusual they were!

The blooms were identical to the Cahaba Lilies my husband had photographed on one of our day trips the previous spring and they even had the same delightful fragrance! I was so excited that I had to call my son immediately to tell him!! I remember something the park ranger at the Cahaba River told us when we were there taking pictures of the Cahaba Lilies. He said that there were two types of these lilies that look exactly the same, one that grows in moving water and one that grows in soil.  I can’t help but wonder if these in my garden could be the type the park ranger mentioned that grows in soil.

Every fall I can hardly wait until these flowers bloom and grace our patio garden with their beauty. As you might expect, they have become one of my garden favorites!

So the question remains, can anyone identify this flowering plant?