California Cobra Lily

Did you know

• The hooded leaves look exactly like rearing cobras with forked tongues—the 'fangs' are actually red lures coated in nectar to attract flies, who then become trapped in the hood.
• Once inside, insects are bewildered by translucent 'windows' in the dome that look like exits—but every escape leads them deeper, until they tire and fall into the digestive juices below.
• The flowers emerge separately on tall stalks well away from the traps—a botanical etiquette to avoid trapping the bumblebees that pollinate them.
• Cobra lily is one of the only plants in the world that requires constantly flowing cold spring water at its roots—it grows naturally only in serpentine seeps in remote California-Oregon mountain meadows.
• The plant was discovered in 1841 by William Brackenridge during the U.S. Wilkes Exploring Expedition—and was so strange that botanists in Philadelphia initially refused to believe it was real.

Color meanings

Uses

• Specimen carnivore
• Bog gardens
• Conservation
• Cool greenhouses