'Lilac Wonder'

We're having another taste of winter here in Alabama. All of my potted plants are safe in the greenhouse and the others are doing fine outside, even though it dropped to 29 degrees. A tulip that I had planted in the ground for the past ten years is now in a clay pot. Tulipa saxatilis 'Lilac Wonder' is the one. It comes back and flowers every year, but it has never divided or increased, unlike T. clusiana 'Lady Jane', another tulip that reliably perennializes in the Deep South, that now pops up all over the place.

I love the 'Lilac Wonder' tulip, even if it is small. The flowers kind of look like lotuses or waterlilies. The leaves are glossy and waxy. They are only prominent for a few weeks and then go back to obscurity until next spring.

You will often (usually, rather) find this tulip sold as a cultivar of Tulipa bakeri, but this is now considered incorrect, as far as I have read.

Tulipa saxatilis 'Lilac Wonder'

'Lilac Wonder'