Don't Listen To Your Mother

Day 267: No matter what they tell you, there are times when you shouldn't listen to your mother. I grew up calling this lovely, showy wildflower by the name my mother used, and she called it by the wrong name because my grandfather had done so. Y'see, in the MidWest, there is a similar but redder lily known commonly as "Turk's Caps." My grandpa spent a large portion of his life in the MidWest and although he was an educated man, he assumed that Lilium columbianum was one and the same with Lilium superbum. They were "Turk's Caps" to him and, by default, also to my mother. I always figured she knew the right of it because it was one of her favorite wildflowers, lighting its tall orange candles in honor of her birthday. It never occurred to me that she could be wrong about something as important as that.

However, the misnomer perpetuated in my family like a hand-me-down sweater, and I grew up calling them "Turk's Caps" until I began studying our native flora and discovered that L. columbianum was the local variety. It is known in many field guides as "Columbia Lily." A few references simply call it "Tiger Lily," extending the nomenclature from the garden to the wild. It deserves better than that.

I've learned to call it by its proper name, at least most of the time. Occasionally, I slip. Old habits die hard, and I had a good twenty years of thinking Joe was really Fred.