by Michelle Coppedge

If it hadn't been discovered, it might have withered away into oblivion," says Alan Weakley, curator of the UNC-Chapel Hill Herbarium. "We might not even have known it was here." He's referring to a rare lily species found in sixteen counties in the Sandhills region of the Carolinas and Virginia. In its natural habitat, the lily is three feet tall and has striking orange or yellow-orange blooms, with six petals curling backward.

Right: Lilium pyrophilum, the fire-loving lily. Photo by Bruce Sorrie; click to enlarge.

Sounds as though this lily would be hard to miss. "There's no doubt the species has been around for thousands and thousands of years," Weakley says. But the "Sandhills lily" has only recently been established as a new species.

At the herbarium, a specimen of the Sandhills lily is dried and pinned in place, petals and leaves flattened and colors faded. A description dated 1993 identifies the plant as an indefinite species of lily. Carol Ann McCormick, assistant herbarium curator, explains. "We knew it was a lily, and that it had affinities with Lilium iridollae," a species found along the Gulf coast. But the flower was seen infrequently over the years, and seemed so similar to other types of lilies that it was assumed to be one of their varieties.

It wasn't until the mid-1990s that Mark Skinner, a National Plant Data Center botanist, and Bruce Sorrie, a Southern Pines botanist and UNC-Chapel Hill Herbarium associate, began thoroughly to investigate the plant as they studied lily populations at Fort Bragg Army Base and other areas in the Sandhills. "We certainly became convinced that this was a new species," Sorrie says. Compared to Lilium superbum, the lily species most similar to it, the Sandhills lily bloomed later and had smaller flowers with slightly longer tubes and shorter, broader leaves. Because it thrived in seepage bogs in the longleaf pine ecosystem — a habitat maintained by frequent fires — Skinner and Sorrie gave the lily the scientific name Lilium pyrophilum, or "fire-loving lily." At the herbarium, a card reading "Lilium pyrophilum M.W. Skinner and Sorrie" supersedes its older identification.

Sorrie and Skinner published a description of the Sandhills lily in the journal Novon in 2002. This year the species was incorporated into the newest volume of The Flora of North America, and Weakley has included it in his publication-in-progress, Flora of the Carolinas and Virginia.

Since there are only about 250 known individuals of the species, the Sandhills lily is difficult to find in its natural habitat — and the best populations are located at Fort Bragg and the Sandhills Game Land, places where public access is limited. The Sandhills lily is a showy, attractive plant that eventually may be used in gardens, Weakley says. Since it is so rare, though, garden shops won't be carrying Lilium pyrophilum for at least several years. In the meantime, students, researchers, and the public can view pressed specimens at the UNC-Chapel Hill Herbarium, a department of the North Carolina Botanical Garden that has the world's largest collection of Southeastern U. S. flora.

Weakley says the discovery of the Sandhills lily highlights the ongoing challenges of North Carolina botanists. Skinner and Sorrie recommend that the "fire-loving lily" be protected and eventually classified as endangered. "It's a very rare species, so as soon as we've discovered it, we're concerned about conservation," Weakley says. "This is another example of the urgency we feel to catalog and conserve North Carolina's rich natural heritage."

Michelle Coppedge is editorial assistant for Endeavors magazine.