Outside a shop on Bisweshwari Debi Road, beside the Brahmaputra in Mymensingh, a St Christopher lily burst into several blooms on the morning of 8 May this year. The flowers are so white and fragrant that passers-by keep picking them, and it took several visits to photograph them, writes botanist Chayan Bikash Bhadra.

The St Christopher lily, Crinum jagus, is a perennial bulbous herb of the Amaryllidaceae family. The genus Crinum comes mainly from tropical Africa, but the plant is now grown in many warm, humid countries.

Its base is a large underground bulb, usually 10 to 15 centimetres across, which carries it through bad weather. The leaves are broad, dark green and strap-like, 60 to 90 centimetres long and 8 to 12 centimetres wide on a mature plant.

From the centre rises a stiff, hollow flower stalk 50 to 90 centimetres tall, topped by an umbrella-like cluster of 4 to 12 flowers. Each has six pure white petals that join at the base in a narrow tube. The sweet scent is strongest in the evening and at night.

It is planted in home gardens, parks, botanical gardens and along pond edges, and because it grows well in shade it is also kept on balconies and indoors. The writer notes that African traditional medicine uses extracts of its bulb and leaves; that is a note on custom, not medical advice.

Given enough moisture and a little care, the plant flowers year after year, which makes it an easy ornamental for gardeners and flower lovers.

The article was published in Prothom Alo; its writer, Chayan Bikash Bhadra, is professor and head of the botany department at Muminunnisa Government College, Mymensingh, and took the photograph.

Source: Prothom Alo