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Around late July,  you'll begin to see one of our trademark wildflowers in bloom - the Turk's Cap Lily. Take a stroll in just about any deciduous forest in midsummer and you are bound to see at least a few. These lilies are very colonial,  and you can easily find large groves and hillsides covered in them. You won't need many clues for identification - if you see a tall, orange lily with whorled leaves and speckled recurved petals, it's a Turk's Cap. They are prolific bloomers, often producing a dozen or more flowers per plant, and I have seen them grow upwards of 10 feet. However, there IS a second species that grows in the mountains of North Carolina - the Carolina Lily (Lilium michauxii). Carolina Lily is very similar. The flower is almost identical, BUT the Carolina is definitely shorter (about 2 feet high as opposed to the Turk's Cap usual 4-6 feet or more), and the leaves are distinctly different. With the Carolina, the leaves are shorter in relation to the rest of the plant, are darker green than the above, a little thicker and more fleshy, and there are fewer whorls or sets of leaves. Most important, the leaves are fattest towards the outer end. With the Turk's Cap as above, the leaves are always widest at the midpoint of the leaf. Also, the Carolina usually bears no more than one, maybe two flowers, and tends to grow in drier and more acidic soil than the Turk's Cap.

These lilies can take years and years to grow. I have been watching some young plants - they start out as a single, deep green leaf on the forest floor. For several years, you may see no more than the one leaf. They especially stand out in spring, when it is easy to mistake their leaves for an early-growing orchid, clintonia or ramp. After some time, they may also put out a few more single ground-level leaves. In late spring, if you ever see one large ground leaf, possibly with a few more smaller ones nearby all lined up in a row , you have found a Turk's Cap Lily - probably of the Carolina species.