Blackberry Lily
Iris domestica (formely, Belamcanda chinensis)
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.
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.1 These were sown in an East Front oval flower bed at Monticello.2 Today the blackberry lilies that are found naturalized throughout Monticello are believed to be descendants of the 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.
In Bloom at Monticello is made possible by support from The Richard D. and Carolyn W. Jacques Foundation.
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Heirloom Seeds and Plants from the Monticello collection
Plant history in your gardens with seeds and plants from Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants.
Footnotes
- 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.
- Betts, 335.