10 delicate Australian native lilies that flower in spring
Few native plants reward close attention like the small lilies that appear across southern Australia in spring. They are delicate, often fragrant, but can be easy to miss since most emerge from the ground, flower and disappear again within a single season.
Australian native lilies are delicate and often fragrant, making them great garden plants.
This is a guide to ten of them, all spring-flowering, along with what makes them worth a place in the garden and why they behave the way they do.
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What makes these plants special
Almost all of these plants are geophytes, meaning they grow from an underground storage organ, tuber, corm or fleshy root. This single trait explains most of their behaviour. Through the cool, wet months they send up leaves and flowers and as summer approaches they die back completely, retreating to the organ below the soil to wait out the heat and dry.
Bulbine lily emerging under eucalyptus trees in spring before they die down again in the summer time.
It is a strategy suited to a continent of hot summers and unreliable rainfall. Rather than trying to survive the harshest season in leaf, these plants sit it out underground, drawing on stored energy and emerging again when conditions turn favourable.
Why they flower in spring
These lilies flower in the narrow window of spring after enough moisture has accumulated. Flowering is their last act of the growing season, timed to finish before summer dormancy.
Spring is the only part of the year the biology of lilies allows them to flower.
This dormancy is an evolved strategy rather than a response to drought as spring is the only part of the year their biology allows them to flower, irrespective of conditions. This is the same logic that drives Australia's broader wildflower season.
1. Chocolate lily (Arthropodium strictum)
What it is
A slender plant with grass-like leaves and branched stems of deep pink to mauve flowers, each with a small twist of petals and a genuine, unmistakable scent of chocolate. The fragrance is strongest on warm days and where several plants grow together, so it is a plant to group rather than dot about.
The branched flower stems of chocolate lily, best planted in groups so the scent carries.
Growing it
One of the easiest native lilies to grow and among the most widely available. It wants well-drained soil and a position in full sun or morning sun with afternoon shade, and it takes only a year or two to reach flowering size from seed. It dies back over summer, so mark its position. Suited to rockeries, containers and the front of a bed.
2. Nodding blue lily (Stypandra glauca)
What it is
Deep blue flowers with prominent yellow stamens, drooping on thread-like stalks in loose clusters at the ends of the stems. It is the largest plant on this list, forming a clump that can reach over a metre, though the individual flowers are as fine as any of them. The blue-green foliage darkens with age, giving a two-tone effect.
Nodding blue lily (Stypandra glauca), its deep blue flowers drooping on fine stalks with prominent yellow stamens.
Cygnis insignis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Growing it
Widespread from the south-west of Western Australia across to south-east Queensland, which makes it one of the more broadly adaptable natives here. It tolerates both drought and frost well, wants full sun to part shade and good drainage. One point worth knowing: the plant is also called blind grass, and the Western Australian forms are toxic to livestock, so it is not one near a grazing paddock.
3. Bulbine lily (Bulbine bulbosa)
What it is
Bright yellow star-shaped flowers on an upright stem, held above fleshy, onion-like leaves. The flowers are lightly fragrant and open in succession up the stem over several weeks, giving a long display for such a small plant.
Bulbine lily (Bulbine bulbosa), yellow star flowers opening in succession up the stem over several weeks.
Growing it
Hardy, adaptable and easy, which makes it a good starting point for anyone new to native lilies. Worth noting that flowering time shifts with latitude: it flowers in spring across the southern states but tends toward autumn in Queensland and northern New South Wales, so local observation beats any fixed date. Full sun and reasonable drainage are all it asks.
4. Vanilla lily/Rush lily (Sowerbaea juncea)
What it is
A grass-like clumping plant that produces dense heads of pale mauve flowers with a soft vanilla perfume in spring. The fine blue-green foliage sets off the flowers well, and the whole plant has a tidy, tufted form that suits a defined spot.
Vanilla lily (Sowerbaea juncea), dense heads of pale mauve flowers with a soft vanilla scent.
John Tann from Sydney, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Growing it
Prefers a sunny position and moist soil, and unlike most on this list it tolerates damper ground, which makes it useful for a spot that stays wet longer than others would like. Grown from seed or division. A good choice near a path or seat where the scent can be appreciated.
5. Milkmaids (Burchardia umbellata)
What it is
Clusters of star-shaped flowers, white with a reddish centre and often flushed pink on the outside, held in an umbel on a slender stem. Sweetly scented and delicately built, milkmaids is a plant that generates real interest among native plant enthusiasts despite its modest size.
Milkmaids (Burchardia umbellata), white star flowers with a reddish centre held on slender stems.
Growing it
Widespread in the wild across grassland, woodland and heath, often in damp or seasonally wet spots, so it appreciates soil that does not dry out too fast. It grows from seed and dies back to a corm and fleshy tubers over summer. Best suited to a naturalistic planting or a grassland-style bed rather than a manicured border.
6. Blue stars (Chamaescilla corymbosa)
What it is
A low, tufted plant, only 10 to 15 centimetres high, that carpets the ground with bright blue six-petalled flowers in early spring. Also called blue squill, it is one of the earliest and prettiest of the small native lilies, and in good years it flowers in numbers that genuinely colour the ground.
Blue stars (Chamaescilla corymbosa), a low early-spring flowerer that can colour the ground in good years.
Growing it
A plant for the patient and the observant, since it is small and its foliage is grassy and easily overlooked outside the flowering window. It grows from a tuber and suits a rockery, a container or a spot at the front of a bed where it will not be crowded out. Grown from seed or by division.
Not true lilies
The true lily family, Liliaceae, is barely present in the Australian flora. The plants gardeners call native lilies belong instead to families such as Asparagaceae, Asphodelaceae and Colchicaceae, and are related to true lilies only distantly. The name is a description of the flower, six petals held above strap-like or grassy foliage, rather than a statement of ancestry. Recent botanical revision has moved many of these species between families and genera, so the naming can look inconsistent across older and newer references. None of this changes how they grow, but it is the kind of detail that rewards a closer look.
7. Common fringe lily (Thysanotus tuberosus)
What it is
The fringe lilies are unmistakable: three purple petals edged with a fine fringe, as though cut with pinking shears. Common fringe lily carries these on branched stems above narrow leaves. Each individual flower lasts only a single day and opens fully only in sunshine, so the plant rewards a visit at the right moment.
Common fringe lily (Thysanotus tuberosus), each fringed purple flower lasting a single sunlit day.
Growing it
Less common in cultivation than the chocolate lilies and worth seeking out for that reason. It grows from a tuberous rootstock, wants full sun and good drainage, and suits a rockery or a warm, open position. The single-day flowers are produced in succession, so a clump gives a longer display than any one bloom suggests.
8. Twining fringe lily (Thysanotus patersonii)
What it is
A curious and lovely plant, nearly leafless, with thread-fine stems that twine through nearby vegetation or trail along the ground. It is easy to miss entirely until the fringed purple flowers open and seem to glow in sunlight, apparently floating on nothing. The same one-day flowering habit as its relatives applies.
Twining fringe lily (Thysanotus patersonii), a near-leafless twiner easily missed until its flowers open.
Ian Sutton from Collinsville and Oberon, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Growing it
Grown from seed and suited to a sunny, well-drained spot where its stems can scramble through low shrubs or a rockery. Because the plant all but vanishes between flowerings, it is best placed where it will not be disturbed. It dies back to a tuber over summer, though kept lightly moist the stems may persist.
9. Early Nancy (Wurmbea dioica)
What it is
One of the first native lilies to flower, and named for it. Small white to pale flowers with a darker central band appear low to the ground in early spring, often before much else has started. The plant is dioecious, meaning male and female flowers occur on separate plants, which is unusual and worth looking for.
Early Nancy (Wurmbea dioica), one of the first native lilies to flower each spring.
Allthingsnative, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Growing it
A small grassland ephemeral, more likely to be encountered in a remnant grassland than bought from a nursery, though it is worth the effort to source for a native grassland planting. It is easily lost among taller plants, so give it an open, sunny position and low competition. Grows from a corm and dies back early.
10. Blue grass lily (Caesia calliantha)
What it is
A tufted, grass-like plant with narrow basal leaves and a tall slender stem carrying starry blue to violet flowers, each petal marked with a fine central line. The flowers open in a loose spike from the base upward, giving a delicate, airy effect above the foliage.
Blue grass lily (Caesia calliantha), starry blue flowers opening up a slender stem.
Growing it
The least commonly offered plant on this list, so one for the collector willing to track it down. It grows from fibrous roots with spindle-shaped tubers, tolerates a range of soils and suits a sunny to lightly shaded position. Best in a naturalistic or grassland-style planting where its fine form reads clearly.
Mark where they grow
Because these plants die back completely to an underground tuber or corm over summer, a bare patch is not a dead plant, it is a dormant one. The most common way to lose a native lily is to forget it is there and dig into it, or plant over it, during its summer rest. Mark the position of each plant with a stake when it is in leaf, water sparingly or not at all through summer, and let it re-emerge in its own time with the autumn and winter rains.
Bringing them into the garden
Native lilies suit the same conditions that they occupy in the wild: open, sunny positions, lean and well-drained soil and minimal interference. They are at their best planted in groups and in naturalistic settings, a grassland-style bed, a rockery, the front of a border, or containers where their detail can be seen up close.
Early Nancy in flower, a small grassland species worth seeking out for a native meadow planting.
None of them demands much once established and most will slowly increase and self-seed. For a gardener willing to accept a plant that disappears for part of the year, they offer fine, often fragrant spring flowers.
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