Tales told by a spider lily

In the garden behind Baz Bahadur’s palace someone had laid out beds of spider lilies. I wondered whether this was anachronistic. The genus Hymenocallis comes from South America. This particular flower belongs to the species Hymenocallis caribaea, from the Caribbean islands. Could it have reached Mandu by 1555 CE, when Baz Bahadur became the sultan? Perhaps. After all many wonders from the new world reached the Mughal court by Akbar’s time. On the other hand, Mandu was a relative backwater, not the capital of a large and rich empire. Unless someone discovers a manuscript or painting from that era showing spider lilies, “perhaps” is the best answer we will have.

The spider lily tells a much older tale. The genus is most closely related to the Agapanthus, flowers which are called Lilies of the Nile. This is a misnomer, because these flowers originate from the west coast of Africa. How is it possible that a west-African genus is the closest relative to a Caribbean and eastern South American genus? The answer is in continental drift. 550 million years ago, Africa, South America, India, Mozambique and Australia drifted together to form the super-continent called Gondwana. The ancestors of these two kinds of flowers would have developed in the center of this continent. 130 million years ago, a rift created the south Atlantic ocean, separating the common ancestors of these flowers. Their descendants in the now separated continents of Africa and South America are now these two genuses.

A macro that I took of a flower eight years ago is a reminder of the deep history of the earth.