This little beauty is the official flower of the province Uppland, Sweden. It's Swedish name is exceptionally pleasant sounding, Kungsängslilja (King's Meadow Lily). The Latin name isn't as lovely, Fritillaria Meleagris - and that's of course thanks to Swedish botanist Carl von Linné, a great man which I also wrote a bit about here
My maternal grandfather, a garden architect and gardener, was a fountain of wisdom when it came to botanical Latin. Myself I truly enjoyed the years of studying Latin in school - and it's such a fantastic help when studying other languages as well as making it so much easier to understand the lingustic building blocks in most of the well-known languages! - but since my fingers are far from green I've never been very interested in learning those botanical names myself.
This particular royal lily above can be found in my very own garden, courtesy of the previous owners. I've always found their - the flowers, not the previous house owners that is - fragile beauty very appealing, and they're just so very befitting in my garden, for a whole quantum of reason. Welcome wee bells.
I've never seen anything like those. So unusual and so pretty.
ReplyDeleteI've heard there's even a large field of these darlings in the vicinity of the town Uppsala, from where the Swedish name derives. I think I'll have to try and find it before the season of their bloom is over...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the photo.
ReplyDeleteSomeone mentioned this was called 'Snake's Head' in English and I had to see for myself. I prefer the Swedish name :)
When I Googled "Lily of King's Meadow" you were first in the results.
Thanks for stopping by, wiseacre, I sure agree the Swedish name is much prettier:)
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