An Unexpected Find
Yesterday @steviebeebumble and I enjoyed leisurely stroll through the woods with our dog Maya. Amidst taking in the greenery, I noticed something odd back about 20 feet behind the tree line. At first I thought it was trash that had been blown in by the recent storms, but then I realized it was something I hadn't encountered in the wild before - two spider lily plants (Hymenocallis sp.), tucked away about 20 feet behind the tree line.
As is my habit, I took pictures using what I had and plugged them into iNaturalist to learn more. iNat quickly gave me three options: Hymenocallis occidentalis (Woodland Spider-Lily), Hymenocallis liriosome (Texas Spider-Lily), and Hymenocallis coronaria (Shoals Spider-Lily or Cahaba Spider-Lily). At a glance, they all looked more or less the same to me, and on iNaturalist the only observation in the county with the same genus was from 2011, unverified, and over 10 miles away. I trust @musellarose 's ID skills quite a lot, but the distance and lack of blooms in that observation left me uncertain.
An Identification Dilemma
The observations that were available presented an interesting challenge, as they were in habitats very different from where I was. Zooming out further I found more observations from areas 10-40 miles away in Bond Swamp, Piedmont National Wildlife refuge, and the Flint River which all reflected all three species. Unfortunately, these all appeared to be in habitats different from where I found my lilies - neither in the swamp, nor semi-aquatic, but in the woods above the river.
This presented a definite dilemma. After all, Hymenocallis coronaria is currently under consideration for the Endangered Species act due to habitat destruction and considered imperiled in Georgia, and while most unlikely would also be important to document as a population if present. The area we were in has been a focus of our invasive plant removal work and reclamation from past industrial usage, so we're often finding native species popping up that we haven't seen there in quite some time. That said, the odds are low, as no observations have been linked to the Ocmulgee that I can find.
Broadening the Search
It was time to get a second opinion. I put a post in the Georgia Native Plants: Identification and Ecology Facebook group, which located someone who knew of a population of H. occidentalis closer to the area and what looked like similar habitat along the Ocmulgee river. This was helpful, but also led to other comments speculating that it could be H. coronaria, as well as confusion from some about how many types of Hymenocallis are in Georgia. It was almost certainly H. occidentalis, but surely I could find something more authoritative.
Time to dig deeper. When in doubt, there are two guides I reference to understand plant distribution - BONAP and Weakley's Flora of the Southeastern United States.
BONAP Data
BONAP gives county by county distributions of plants, showing counties a plant is native and present (dark green), present and not rare (light green), present and rare (yellow), and several other statuses. It's a great tool for understanding native ranges and likelihood of finding species. It doesn't get into microhabitats, but it's still very useful. Let's take a look at the maps for our three possible species:
H. coronaria
H. occidentalis
H. liriosme
This pretty clearly suggests that the H. liriosme identification is wrong - it's not documented in this state! Still, H. occidentalis and H. coronaria do both appear to exist here. Let's see what Weakley's has to say.
Weakley's Flora
Looking at the ID pages for each plant didn't give immediate resolution - both are considered rare or Uncommon in this area. Further muddying the figurative waters, Weakley notes that "Many previous reports of this species from areas other than the inland (non-Coastal Plain) provinces, and from habitats other than rocky river shoals, reflect misapplication of the name". So much for ruling this out based on it being out of water.
It was time to break out the dichotomous key. Because the plants are so similar, I had to work my way down to stem number 8 "staminal cup > 4.5 cm long; [rocky river shoals of the Piedmont of AL, GA, and SC, and the Ridge and Valley of AL]" vs "cup < 4.5 cm long; [Coastal Plain, Piedmont floodplains, and the GA Ridge and Valley]". H. coronaria has the smaller cup, while H. occidentalis has the longer flowers.
Of course, I didn't measure the flowers, but I did have this image to work with:
.
Considering the length of my thumb, I'd say these are past the 4.5 cm mark. I may have to go back and measure to be 100% sure.
Thus, I find myself with an ID that I feel confident with, a unique find in an areas where the plant hasn't been seen before, and a greater knowledge of Hymenocallis systematics. I'm still not beating @fountainfungi in finding rare plants, but there's always the next hike.
