Blackberry Lily

From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia

Common Name: Blackberry Lily^[1]

Scientific Name: Belamcanda chinensis

This Asian perennial, which Thomas Jefferson called "Chinese Ixia," is actually a member of the Iris family. Jefferson first received seed from nurseryman Bernard McMahon in 1807, during his second term as President of the United States.^[2] These were sown in an East Front oval flowerbed at Monticello.^[3] Today the blackberry lilies that are found naturalized throughout Monticello are believed to be descendants of Jefferson’s original plantings.

The Blackberry Lily is a hardy, herbaceous summer-flowering perennial with red-spotted orange flowers on stalks, followed by unusual seed heads that resemble blackberries, but the seeds are not edible.

Footnotes

1. ↑ This article is based on a Center for Historic Plant Information Sheet.
2. ↑ Betts, Garden Book, 337. See also Edwin M. Betts, Hazlehurst Bolton Perkins, and Peter J. Hatch, Thomas Jefferson's Flower Garden at Monticello, 3rd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 54.
3. ↑ Betts, 335.

Further Sources

• Leighton, Ann. American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1986
• Seeds available for purchase at Monticello Museum Shop
• Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants