Figure 1 – Tiger Lily, Old North Bridge National Historic Site, Concord, MA, August 1, 2021. (c) DE Wolf 2021.

I have been rejoicing in these dog days of summer – the transition from hot July to hotter and sultry August. And next will be the marvels of the September light. Heralding in these deep summer days have been the lilies, especially the day lilies and the tiger lilies. Figure 1 is a perfect, of color and form, tiger lily ( Lilium lancifolium) that I encountered yesterday at the Old North Bridge National Historic Site in Concord, MA.

Now Tiger lilies are certainly beautiful. But more significantly they carry with them a certain magic – the magic of childhood. First, there is Tiger Lily from Peter Pan. Although by now she has, alas,  become a tired non-PC trope. Always amazing that we never realized that we were being non-PC. Times change, but the memories of childhood do not. Second, there is the Tiger Lily of Lewis Carrol’s “Through the Looking Glass,” and the Garden of Living Flowers. Alice woefully says, ”

“Oh Tiger Lily, I wish you could talk so you could tell me how to get out of this wood.”

To which the Tiger Lily replies,

“I can talk, when there’s anybody worth talking to!”

And sometimes when summer is particularly hot and sultry you find yourself wishing that flowers could actually talk and tell us their stories. And if it is even hotter and harder to breathe perhaps you can actually hear them muttering. Just muttering because we really are not worth talking to!