LITTLE ROCK — First, the naked ladies start dancing in the yard. Then come the red spiders, waving in the breeze atop bare stems. Lycoris flowers grace our gardens like a pleasant surprise. So of ...

It's the first great mystery of fall, and even after watching it happen for nearly 50 years, I can't get over it: The naked flowers of the lycoris, the red spider lilies, emerging from the weeds of ...

If you grow Lycoris squamigera (also called Magic Lily or Amaryllis halli), the blooms will be popping up in another two weeks or a month, but naked. No leaves whatsoever. If you don't know Lycoris, ...

Lycoris radiata is the botanical name of the widely loved, fall-blooming, red spider lily. Though the Latin name is pretty and not that hard to say, the blooming bulb is better known by many other ...

Many plant lovers have a special fondness for daffodils, that early blooming bulb which always seems to push out of the ground in the cold of winter and fight the elements to bring forth a sign of ...

There’s probably no more delicate flower found in our gardens. I’ll give you two choices of names: Lycoris squamigera or “naked ladies.” Or you can go with the unimaginative “surprise lilies” that is ...

What does the enigmatic mistress of Roman general Marcus Antonius — who died 2200 years ago — have to do with a group of flowering plants? Well, the fascinating lady's name — Lycoris — is commemorated ...

Kathy Huber has worked for the Houston Chronicle since May 1981. She was Features Copy Desk chief before becoming the first full-time garden editor for the paper in 1988. She writes a weekly garden ...