The Star Gazer Lily is more correctly StarGazer Lily or Lillium ‘StarGazer’, with “StarGazer” crammed together in one word. This Asiatic Lily is a fairly recent hybridization (circa 1974) of the Rubrim lily. The thing is that the flowers of the Rubrim lily faced downwards.
Downward facing petals were not popular with consumers. Leslie Woodriff, a California lily breeder, spotted a Rubrium that faced upwards. From the single specimen, he created the new hybrid, an Asiatic Lily with a builtin bias towards upward-facing flowers.
His name for the hybrid was a marketing success, and the StarGazer Lily has been a florist-industry megahit for many years. Of course, it helps that the Star Gazer is a beautiful flower, with a wonderful—but sometimes almost overwhelming—fragrance.
I made the close-up and almost abstract photos of a Star Gazer Lily shown below using a macro lens and an extension tube.
If you are interested in flowers, gardens, and flower and garden photography, I have a number of related workshops coming up in 2019:
- Garden and Flower Photography in Florida, coming up in early February. This is the first flower photography workshop I have given in Florida, and I excited about exploring the flora of the sunshine state with others who love botanical photography. Click here for more information and registration.
- Photographing the Great Gardens of Maine, scheduled for mid-August at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport. We have some exciting new gardens to photograph this year, with exclusive access. The information and a registration link is to be announced shortly.
- Photographing Paris in the Spring: One of the highlights of this destination photo workshop is an after-hours exclusive artist access to Monet’s garden at Giverny. Click here for more information.
- Photographing Flowers for Transparency: this hands-on weekend workshop in Berkeley, California in June teaches the technique I have developed to create high-key, transparent floral images using a light box. Click here for more information and registration.
Related story: Anthers in Love.