Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Orange Daylilies

When you have only two pennies left in the world, 
buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.
                                                   -- a Chinese proverb

One of my favorite summer flowers is the bright orange daylily
that grows wild along the highways and country roads.
To me they are the quintessential summer flower.


I read on the web page American Meadows 
that "our" orange daylilies are not native to America, however. 
Instead, they arrived from China by way of Europe,
where they were cultivated as part of English gardens going back centuries.
Orange daylilies proliferated across the USA 
beginning in colonial times to when they were brought west by pioneers 
along the Oregon Trail and other frontier trails.


And somewhere in that journey of centuries,
the orange daylilies one day arrived 
along the fence row of a Missouri meadow,
where small children plucked the bright orange flowers for their mother.
Kind of amazing when you think about it!
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