Snow White
Detail of a rain-lily, Cooperia pedunculata.
The tepals of a rain-lily are delicate and translucent, and their edges have a visual texture surprisingly like that of snow or ice. Unlike this morning’s equally close view of a rain-lily, this one lets you see the color that can appear in the tip of a tepal.
© 2011 Steven Schwartzman
(For more information about this species, including a clickable map showing where it grows, you can visit the USDA website.)
Portraits of Wildflowers 
That little bit of pink makes you smile 🙂
Eden
June 30, 2011 at 8:36 AM
I’m glad it made you smile.
Steve Schwartzman
June 30, 2011 at 11:34 AM
is this also known as an autumn crocus? Looks like our autumn crocus, which tend to flower more when rain imminent
Lilith
August 22, 2011 at 7:18 AM
No, the rain-lily is unrelated to the crocus. I just looked up the crocus and found that it’s in the iris family rather than the lily family. But I’ve learned that sometimes plants from different families look similar and share certain features; from what you’ve written, you must have a type of crocus that resembles this Texan wildflower. In the case of the rain-lily, it springs up a few days after a good rain and not (to my knowledge) before, unless coincidentally a second rain follows a first.
Steve Schwartzman
August 22, 2011 at 7:28 AM
[…] of autumn, Cooperia drummondii, rather than the larger ones shown in the springtime of this blog in a first post and then a second post on June […]
A different rain-lily « Portraits of Wildflowers
October 13, 2011 at 5:57 AM
I’d never heard of Rain Lilies before. Do they have a fragrance as other lilies do? Do they come up en masse? If so, will you be sharing a picture? Thanks for the links to your other shots. I had missed your earlier posts. ~ Lynda
pixilated2
October 13, 2011 at 7:16 AM
I smelled one yesterday to confirm that it has a faint but pleasant scent. Yes, sometimes these flowers come up en masse, and in fact I hunted in likely places for such a colony yesterday but didn’t find one. I found plenty of groups, but the flowers were too scattered for the effect I wanted to get in a photograph. My best group pictures of rain-lilies are from a decade ago, and I’ve long regretted not encountering such dense colonies again. One of these days….
Steve Schwartzman
October 13, 2011 at 7:31 AM
[…] A pink tip of a rain-lily tepal; […]
When is a rain-lily black? — Take 2 | Portraits of Wildflowers
October 25, 2013 at 1:34 PM