Dry Corn Lily Plants, Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A bed of fallen and dry autumn corn lily plants, Yosemite National Park.
The corn lily is one of my favorite Sierra plants. It tends to grow in meadowy, wet areas that are often particularly lush — and thus bug infested— in the early season. I think it is an attractive plant at almost any point in its annual life-cycle. It emerges as the green shoot as meadows come back to life early in the season, and before long the intense and lush bright green plants stand tall. But this state of perfection doesn’t last long, and soon blemishes appear — dark spots, holes, and eventually yellow areas as the end of the summer season draws near. (I’ve long thought of this change as the first sign of the coming Sierra autumn season.) Eventually the plants dry out, fall over, and when everything works out just right the form small carpets of brown and yellow and tan and fading green.
The corn lily is a favorite of photographers, most often photographed during that earlier lush, green stage. (It often seems like photographing such a beautiful plant would be easy, but once I start looking for the perfect conjunction of leaf shapes it inevitably becomes more difficult than I expected. )
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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