Floating Hornian lily

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Floating Hornian lily
(Liliumfluitantis horniense)

The Liliumfluitantis horniense, also called floating Hornian lily or runner lily, is a plant of the genus Liliumfluitantis, in the liliaceae family. It is native to the central area of ​​Horn Blu Island, but has subsequently spread throughout the island.
It forms bulbs at ground level, from which grow erect stems covered with oblong and spatulate leaves, from fifty centimeters to one and a half meters high, which subsequently dry up in summer. Flowering happens in spring and the intensely perfumed flowers are saffron yellow in color, with the typical shape of a lily, but their petals widen at the tips forming circular shapes that seem to capture the wind.
The fruits are trilocular capsules full of a large number of seeds that usually ripen in the period of August-September.

The magic of floating

During the flowering period, the floating lily detaches itself from the ground, leaving a certain amount of small bulbils behind, and floats away carried by the wind, so that there's no overcrowding of bulbs in the same piece of ground. This way the plant spreads quickly and grows healthy.
The magic of floating fades and then goes off permanently as the leaves dry up in the summer, and the bulb lands somewhere where it will take root and start its life cycle again, producing new leaves and new bulbils in the winter, to newly float during the next flowering season and move again.
The origin of this phenomenon is unknown, like it's unknown whether it's a spontaneous type of magic or the successful experiment of an experienced magician, but the magic of floating is self-perpetuating and all plants born from the division of the bulbs or seeds of other floating lilies will be able to detach themselves from the ground.
If a part of the plant (for example, petlas or leaves) is detached from the rest during the floating period, it won't be able to float on its own.

In art and heraldry

Often the floating lily is painted together with the dames who have become dragoneers, as a symbol of their freedom acquired by “detaching themselves from the ground” thanks to the wings of their dragon.
In heraldry it represents a faction, a city or a family that are not bound to anyone, but, free as the floating lilies, can decide at any moment to support whatever ideology they wish: it is a "capricious" figure and is in a certain sense dangerous display it on a shield.

In popular culture

These gorgeous magical lilies, of course, have always teased the imagination of people, who have invented a series of superstitions and even games concerning them.
It is said that if a floating lily enters through the open window of a house, a new person who will bring happiness in the household will soon arrive in that house, and it's seen as a particularly auspicious sign by couples seeking to have children, which in spring leave all windows open hoping that these plants will come in.
When a large group of these flying lilies arrive near a village, the children gently pull them down with long reeds and then arrange them all lined up in a low, floating row; each child chooses a lily and stands behind it, then starts walking and blows behind it as quickly as possible to make it move forward. The lily that first arrives beyond the pre-established goal (which can be a fence, or a furrow in the ground or simply a tree) is called "King of the children" and hung with a rope in the center of the village where it will remain floating as a balloon until it loses its seasonal magical properties, to be later planted in a flower bed.
Another game, unassuming and more common, is the "head-down" in which children (and sometimes adults too) try to turn a floating lily upside down and make it stay in this position, without touching it, for ten seconds.

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