Zephyranthes macrosiphon

A rain lily that flowers on a whim of the weather, and a plant that spent nearly forty years under the wrong name. Zephyranthes macrosiphon is a bulbous perennial of the amaryllis family, native to eastern Mexico, grown for vivid rose-pink flowers that open as if overnight after warm-season rain.

About that name. Woodlanders sold this plant for years as Zephyranthes fosteri, and so did most of American horticulture. In the late 1980s J. C. Raulston acquired seed under that name and shared the resulting bulbs generously through the nursery world, as was his way, without the identity ever being confirmed. Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery flagged the error for us in 2026, and the listing is corrected here. The epithet macrosiphon means long tube, for the slender perianth tube beneath the flower; John Gilbert Baker described the species in 1881.

The plant closely resembles the familiar Zephyranthes grandiflora and separates on small points: flowers a shade smaller at two to three inches across, a taller flowering stalk, and a stigma held shorter than the anthers. Strappy, slightly glaucous leaves form a low green tuft that goes largely unnoticed until summer, when stems push up to a foot or more and open wide, starry, rich rosy flowers. Blooms arrive in flushes triggered by rain, so the display keeps an unpredictable rhythm right through the warm months.

Use the pink rain lily at the front of a border, in a rock or gravel garden, along a path edge, or in a container, in full sun to part shade and well-drained sandy or loamy soil. Established bulbs are drought-tolerant between rains, undemanding, and multiply steadily into a tidy clump. Massed along a walk, few small bulbs answer a summer storm as promptly or as cheerfully.

Our thanks to Tony Avent for the correction, and to J. C. Raulston, whose habit of sharing everything he grew is the reason so many gardens have this plant at all, whatever we were all calling it.