Today's images are again courtesy of Hugh and Carol Nourse@Flickr, of Georgia, USA (original image 1 | original image 2 via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool). Both were taken earlier this year, in mid-July. Thank you!
Within North America, Turk's-cap lily is the largest lily east of the Rocky Mountains. It is also the tallest species of lily in North America, sometimes reaching 2.8m (9 ft.).The species ranges over much of the eastern USA, occupying a number of habitats from near sea-level to 1600m (5250 ft.). As shown in the first photograph with the accompanying Papilio glaucus (eastern tiger swallowtail), swallowtail butterflies are pollinators for this species--in fact, the primary pollinators.
Missouri Botanical Garden has a small factsheet on Lilium superbum, including some advice for cultivating it. Another description of the species with additional photographs is available via Illinois Wildflowers: Lilium superbum.
Botany / physics resource link: "Harvard researchers, captivated by a strange coiling behavior in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly". Read more about Clues in the Cucumber's Climb.
