If you haven’t grown A. taiwanense, you haven’t lived! This stunning cobra lily emerges in spring as a thick, 30″ tall, snakeskin-colored stalk of light green with dark black blotches. Atop the stem sits a perfectly radial leaf, with 1′ long leaflets, emerging like spokes on a wheel, each ending as a drooping thread. The flower emerges from the ground to form a giant grim reaper-like black-purple hood with a long threadlike tongue emerging from the front…bizarrely wonderful. (Original collections from Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones (BSWJ1879) in Taiwan.)
