I’ve been out of Mississippi for a few days, only to return to the annual  show-stopping, mind-blowing return of one of my most favorite native bloomers:: Naked Ladies.

They make their all too brief appearance in August of each year and leave as abruptly as a pole dancer who is accosted by a drunken sailor.

They were everywhere this weekend throughout North Mississippi and Alabama. It makes me want to kick myself for not planting that box of bulbs my Aunt Emma brought me last fall.

Emma told me she had her house painted last year and told the painting crew to begin on the south side “over there by the Naked Ladies.”  She said the men sloshed paint all over the yard trying to get to the Naked Ladies.

Aren’t they beautiful?

These spectacular plants appear in the spring as an innocuous Monkey Grass-looking plant.  They die back, then just when you think the summer will destroy your sanity, they push up these beautiful stems overnight and present you with the most beautiful orchid-like bloom.

If you want some, I will share.