Botany Photo of the Day

It is somehow heartening to know that it is always spring or summer somewhere in the world. Another thank you to David M. aka petrichor@Flickr of Sydney, Australia for sharing one of his photographs (original via BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Here's another plug for David's weblog as well, Kipili.com, with near-daily photographs of Australian plants.

The genus Tricoryne contains seven species, six of which are endemic to Australia (and one that is also found in New Guinea). Tricoryne simplex is one of the Australian endemics, native mainly to coastal New South Wales. Herbarium records seem to indicate one disjunct population in Queensland near Brisbane and a second disjunct population in the interior of NSW near Cobar, but these seem to be so far from the main distribution range that I wonder if the information has been verified. To see the herbarium records map, visit the New South Wales Flora Online record for Tricoryne simplex, then click on the “AVH map” button to view records from the Australian Virtual Herbarium. It's quite possible that these disjunct populations exist (or existed at one time), but it is also possible that there is some error in the location data, that an error occurred while keying in the location data or that a misidentification occurred.

It seems that it has a not-so-commonly-used common name: yellow rush-lily. This moniker makes more sense if you view photographs of the entire plant: Tricoryne simplex via the Tricoryne simplex via Plants of Sydney.

Lastly, I should note that Tricoryne is typically associated with the Anthericaceae, a plant family that has now been lumped into the Agavaceae (but see comments below – it looks like Tricoryne has been moved into the Hemerocallidaceae.