I could have answered the editor’s question about the lilies in my story for Cricket Magazine without consulting an expert, but I knew he wanted an authority. The question was whether the Milk-and-Wine Lilies that were crucial to the plot of the story would really live for the number of generations required for the denouement.
My official reply was, “The technical name is Crinum, but they are sometimes known as Confederate Lilies as well. The Mississippi Gardener’s Guide by Norman Winter says, ‘Crinums are the sequoias of the bulb world – they will be around for generations.’ In Passalong Plants, Steve Bender and Felder Rushing title their segment on the plant ‘Crinums Never Die’ and say, ‘It’s a rare stretch of rural, Southern backroad that doesn’t show off at least one coarse mound of milk-and-wine crinum lilies’.’’
I like my unofficial story better. The lily pictured above is a generational passalong with a long history that began in my mother’s childhood. According to my aunt, it was the first of many efforts in Mama’s lifelong green-thumb gardening. She found a patch growing in the pasture and planted them the length of the south side of their home when she was about nine years old. By the time we four girls visited our grandfather in that house, we went to sleep smelling their heady aroma from the open windows on summer nights. At the time, we didn’t know the name and just called them “Papaw’s Lilies.” They were truly passalong plants with Mama and many others getting a “start” for their own yards.
Once we were grown, the McGee girls continued the habit. However, those lilies were picky about being moved, and transplanting became iffy. I got them to grow when we moved to Leesville, Louisiana, but it took three tries at passing along before my daughter could get them to grow in Texas. Fortunately, they finally took because it took three turns of my getting passalongs from her in return before they decided to grow in our new home when we moved back to Mississippi.
Remembering their cranky disposition, I brought about a dozen bulbs when we made the move last fall out to the country. After spending my spring hovering to see if any spark of green popped up where I had planted them, I think all but one has made the cut. I was thrilled this week when the first one bloomed.
As for the Cricket editor, he liked my revisions that he requested and the proof of the pudding from the experts. I loved having Papaw’s Lilies star in the magazine, though I called them by their proper name of Milk-and-Wine Lilies.