A SHADED FLOWER

This flower was a big surprise. It's quite big in itself, a hand span across at least. I hadn't seen it before I turned on the herb garden sprinkler yesterday evening. There it was, just outside of the herb garden rim and just coming into flower.

It has been planted upon us, obviously. It's a new addition to our "auntie's garden" made up of both overt and covert plant gifts. Our green-fingered friends cannot resist growing things from cuttings and division but then have no more space, themselves. We have been the lucky recipients of many of these plants. Unlucky, too. There are some massive flamboyant, tropical looking things growing down a slope, which I really don't like a whole lot, but there they are. It's a good thing I am not into garden design.

I actually took down the heavy Royal Horticultural Society Enclylopedia and looked up this flower. No luck. I thought it must be either lillium or allium but if so, this variety is not shown.

The old door in the valley blip is postponed once more. It is too hot to go down there in the mid-day sun and take pics. I will have to get up early or shatter my own nerves and blip late. It does not take long in the sun to start feeling queasy. I should have taken more shots of this flower but it was over 38 C, 100 F, even in the shade of the persimmon tree.
Also, I liked the silhouetted beetle.

I have a nephew who loves winter's cold and dark. He says he "comes alive." The idea of "hunkering down" (his words) in front of a fire is his idea of bliss. I don't know where he gets it. My idea of bliss is temperatures so hot and sun so bright it banishes SAD, when there is nothing for it but to sit in front of a fan with a cool cloth, a good book and a glass of fresh lemonade. We have a portable air conditioner in the bedroom but not elsewhere. Now that I think about it, am feeling a little queasy. Forget the fan and cool cloth, I think I'll hop it to the bedroom with the laptop.

News update: Agapanthus it is.