Tricyrtis macropoda - Toad Lily

The Tricyrtis macropoda, sometimes called the Toad Lily, is an Asian perennial prized for its abundant and unique flowering, resembling white orchid flowers with purple-pink spots. This plant has a rhizomatous stump and forms a bush of sturdy and villous stems, with pale green oblong leaves. It blooms from late summer until the first frost. Much hardier and more vigorous than true orchids, it is an interesting ornamental plant for shady flowerbeds and undergrowth with rich, cool, light and deep soils.   

The Tricyrtis macropoda is a rhizomatous perennial plant of the lily family. It is a species mainly native to wet areas including forests, meadows, slopes and shady rocky terrains in China and Japan. This highly ornamental species is now widely cultivated in countries with a temperate climate, particularly in well-informed French amateur gardens. When planted in a rather cool, rich, semi-shaded and deeply tilled soil, this Toad Lily grows up to 80 cm (32in) in height and spreads up to 60 cm (24in) in width thanks to its rhizomatous stump. Preferring humid soils, it does not tolerate limestone. The plant forms clumps composed of upright or arching but sturdy, thick stems bearing oval-elliptical leaves, up to 12 cm (5in) long, pale green with undulate margins. They are crossed by prominent parallel veins. Flowering occurs from August to October, in the form of terminal cymes bearing beautiful small open star-shaped flowers with prominent stigmas. The aerial, deciduous vegetation disappears in winter.

The Trycirtis has captured the imagination of gardeners; nicknamed the Orchid Lily for the shape of its flower, Toad Lily for a reason that escapes us (perhaps because it loves coolness and humidity, its flower is punctate like the skin of the amphibian, or even out of contradiction?). Too little used in our gardens, it will happily share the territory of hostas and ferns, offering its flowers during a season when most other undergrowth flowers have faded. If early frosts are likely to harm its flowering, it is a very hardy plant that brings an exotic and unexpected touch to a shady rockery. Perfectly at home among the round, mossy stones of a Japanese garden, it also grows very well in a pot on a shaded terrace, where its lanceolate foliage is decorative from spring to autumn.

Attention, young shoots are often targeted by small gray slugs!