Glory lily is a species of flowering plant in the family Colchicaceae. Like other members of the Colchicaceae, all parts of the plant are poisonous. They contain high levels of the toxic alkaloid colchicine. The plant is native to tropical and southern Africa and temperate and tropical Asia (from China to India).
Glory lily is a perennial herb with climbing stems up to 4 m long. It has tendrils on the leaf tips that clasp onto other plants and structures helping the plant climb. The stems emerge from a fleshy, elongated, often forked tuberous rhizome in spring.
The showy flowers of glory lily have amazing fire like colors (red, orange and yellow) and an unusual shape (they have six reflexed tepals and long stamens with large anthers).
I stumbled into an outdoor glory lily patch in one of Basel’s botanical gardens (Grün 80) recently.