Category Archives: Treat’s Rain Lily

Treat’s Rain Lilies 2023-02-18

These lilies sprung up just in time for the weekend cold snap.

[One and two Treat's Rain Lilies @ OPF 2023-02-18]
One and two Treat’s Rain Lilies @ OPF 2023-02-18

Treat’s rain lily, Zephyranthes atamasca var. treateiae, is a special variety that mostly grows in counties on either side of the GA-FL line. I hear there are also some in Louisiana and Alabama. Continue reading

Treat’s Rain Lily 2022-02-25

A sure sign of spring: Treat’s rain lily.

[Treat's rain lily]
Treat’s rain lily

Zephyranthes atamasca var. treateiae these days is classified as an amaryllis.

This is a special native variety of Atamasco lily, Zephyranthes atamasca, that only grows in counties on either side of the GA-FL line, plus maybe some in Alabama. According to Flora of North America (eFloras.org), Continue reading

First rain lily of 2012

The first rain lily I saw this year.


Picture by John S. Quarterman at Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 March 2012.

A small lily that grows only in counties along the Georgia-Florida border, and maybe in a few in Alabama: Treat’s Rain Lily, Zephyranthes atamasca var. treateiae. These days it’s classified as an amaryllis.

-jsq

The Lilies of Spring

These are not your average lily. They only grow in counties in south Georgia and north Florida along the state line, and maybe a few counties in Alabama. They’re Treat’s rain lily, Zephyranthes atamasca var. treateiae. It’s actually an amaryllis. You may know them as “those lilies you see in the ditch by the road.”

More pictures in the flickr set. Pictures by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 March 2011.

Also pictures from previous years.

-jsq

Treat’s Rain Lily

Treats Rain Lilly You may know these as Easter lilies, or “those lilies that grow in the ditches by the road in the spring.” It turns out their real name is Treat’s Rain Lily, and they are a native of south Georgia and north Florida, plus a bit of Alabama, and don’t grow anywhere else. We’ve seen them in Georgia counties along the Florida border as far west as Cairo, but not any farther north. Here’s much more about these lilies.

They really like where we burned this spring in the woods:

Hundreds of them in the woods

The red flags mark where we transplanted some longleaf pine seedlings.

Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman, 2-3 April 2010, Lowndes County, Georgia.

VDT: Quarterman Road project completed

The Valdosta Daily Times caught me working on being tactful.

Matt Flumerfelt’s writeup actually conflates two different county commission meetings, but gets the gist right:

The fate of the tree canopies lining the rural road were thought to hang in the balance. Several residents spoke in favor of the paving, citing dangerous conditions along the road during periods of stormy weather.

John and Gretchen Quarterman, whose ancestors lent their name to the country lane, led the fight to preserve the road in its original pristine dirt-road condition.

A longleaf pine on Quarterman Road. The forest along Quarterman Road is “a scrap of the longleaf fire forest that used to grow from southern Virginia to eastern Texas,” said John Quarterman following the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “This forest has been here since the last ice age.”

Quarterman Road, pre-paving, was the kind of dirt road down which Huckleberry Finn might be envisioned skipping barefoot with a fishing rod projecting over one shoulder.

It was the kind of road near which Thoreau might have planted a cabin.

“Many people don’t know that a longleaf pine forest has more species diversity than anything outside a tropical rain forest,” Quarterman said. “In our woods, we have five species of blueberries, …

Oh, the beaver will be mad. I forgot to mention the beaver.

The rest of the story is on the VDT web pages. More pictures of the event in the previous blog entry.

For pictures of what lives in the forest, see longleaf burning gopher tortoises, snakes, frogs, bees and butterflies, spiders and scorpion, and raccoon, and beautyberry, pokeberry, passion flower, pond lily, ginger lily, Treat’s rain lily (native only to south Georgia, north Florida, and a bit of Alabama), thistle, sycamore, palmetto, mushrooms, lantana, magnolia, grapes, yellow jessamine, dogwood, and native wild azaleas.

The VDT has a good picture of Gretchen cutting the ribbon.

But it’s not over just because one road project is completed:

“More people around the county seem to be paying attention these days. Commissioners tell us that already another road in the county has had its canopy saved during paving, and the commission has promised residents of Coppage Road that if their road is paved, their canopy will be saved. Commissioners even seem to like the idea of recognizing canopy roads as a feature of quality of life for residents of the county and for visitors.”

We have a forest. The county just has roads.

Now let’s go see what they’re doing to the rest of our roads. And schools, and waste management, and biofuels, and industry…. If you’d like to help, please contact the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.