Botany Photo of the Day

Well, first of all, apologies for the flaky server these past few days. We're still not sure what's been causing the outages, but if we do figure out what's been causing it, we'll post the details in this thread on the forums. I'm hoping it won't crash when the notification emails are sent out, but I suppose we'll see...

In any case, it's been quite some time since we've had some photographs from El Charco del Ingenio in Mexico, courtesy of David Tarrant, so I was happy to see these recent pics from him.

Zephyranthes fosteri has English common names of fairy lily, rain lily and zephyr lily. In Mexico, David informs me, it is known as mayito, or little may flower. David sent along these details to me:

"Have attached these images of Zephyranthes fosteri taken at el Charco last Friday!!! I am always amazed at such delicate little flowers emerging form parched earth. The larger group is right in the middle of a lightly-used path,, while the single one by the rock is in a well-used path. They are, of course, bulbous perennials... They are also referred to as rain lilies, although we haven't had a significant rainfall for months (other than 1cm earlier last week). Maybe enough to trigger these blooms."

Zephyranthes fosteri is listed on the Weeds of Mexico site (Zephyranthes fosteri), but no details are given about its economic impact. Other details about the plant, including whether it is restricted to Mexico in its distribution or not, are hard to come by online.