Toad Lilies are Lovely, and That's No Hoax

The genus Tricyrtis, commonly called Toad Lilies, supposedly acquired its unfortunate name as part of a famous hoax, but the beautiful flowers deserve better.

The story goes that Manuel Elizalde, Filipino Minister of Culture during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, claimed that he had discovered the Tasaday tribe, a group of stone age hunters surviving on the island of Mindanao. In truth, the tribe was quite modern, but Elizalde persuaded them to play their part for the sake of ecotourism. They even duped National Geographic. The magazine featured the Tasaday in an article in 1972, titled "The Last Tribes of Mindanao." Eventually the tale was debunked, and in 1986, a 20/20 special highlighted the hoax in a documentary, "The Tribe that Never Was."

The stone age tribe reportedly depended on toads as their main source of protein. They crushed a certain plant and rubbed their bodies with its sticky juice, which attracted the toads, who then were easily caught in the gummy substance. None of this was true, but the poor plant came to be called Toad Lily, and the name persists to this day.

Native to Asia, toad lilies will grow in US hardiness zones 4-8. This perennial has many cultivars, growing from 1-3 feet tall and wide. An excellent source of nectar for wildlife, they begin to flower in late summer to early fall and may bloom all the way into November.
Their orchid-like blooms are small but numerous, often speckled in shades of red or purple, sometimes solid white or yellow. The lance shaped leaves resemble Solomon's Seal and are sometimes mottled or variegated. 

Tricrytis will grow in shade to partial shade in moist, rich, well-drained soil containing lots of organic matter. Good companion plants are woodland plants that prosper in similar conditions, including hostas, ferns, hardy begonias, and hellebores. 

One may propagate toad lilies by seeds or by lifting and dividing the bulbs at the base of the plant.

One warning: Although toad lilies are not bothered by many pests, deer and rabbits love this plant. I don't have deer, but last year a rabbit chewed mine down to nubs, right before they bloomed! So far, Mr. Bunny has not returned this year. Snails and slugs may also snack on the leaves. 

Toad Lilies are beautiful woodland plants. Mine are planted close to a path so that I can appreciate their small flowers as I walk by. One may also enjoy the blooms by cutting stems and bringing inside.

My Little Orb Weaver

I was outside and walked into a spider web the other day. I turned around and managed to get the web wrapped across my mouth and draped through my hair. I spit and frantically batted at it, imagining the spider heading right into some facial orifice. Somehow I was able to extricate myself, and I fortunately never saw the spider. Poor spider. She was probably more distressed than I was.

Have you noticed how many more spider webs there are in the fall? That's because immature spiders usually come out of their egg sacks in the spring, then take most of the summer to grow up. When they mature, they concentrate on reproducing. Females need lots of energy to produce eggs, so they eat a lot. Thus, lots of spider webs to catch their food. While male spiders will spin webs to catch prey when they are young, upon maturity they usually abandon the practice to concentrate on mating.

I was fortunate to see the next spider web before I walked into it. It seemed to be a large web for such a small spider. I think the spider was just getting started:

Here is a close-up of the spider. She is very interesting!

I looked up my spider on line and easily identified it as a spiny-back orb weaver, Gasteracantha cancriformis. These distinctive crab-shaped spiders have spines along their sides. They have color variations of red, white, yellow and black, depending on their region. They are very small. The male is only up to 1/18 inch, while the female is larger at about 3/8 inch. They are short-lived spiders, living from 2 to 5 months. The male dies only 8 days after mating and the female dies soon after laying her eggs.

These orb weavers are garden spiders. They do not invade the house, and they are not dangerous. They are good guys, preying on flies, mosquitos, beetles, and many flying insects that are harmful to crops and ornamental plants in our gardens. They are susceptible to insecticides, so use of artificial pesticides should be minimized.

There are many species of orb weavers across the world. The famous little spider in Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White, was a kind of orb weaver. Next time I see a spider web in my garden, I will think twice about knocking it down!