A botanical superstar lives in the South.

It’s exquisite and periled, in that much of its habitat lies beneath lakes.

As status goes, the rocky shoals spider lily is a national plant of concern, and you’ll find it in just three states: South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.

Babylon had its hanging gardens, and South Carolina has its watery, undulating gardens.

What’s considered the world’s largest colony blesses South Carolina with blooms aplenty this time of year. You’ll find it at Landsford Canal State Park in Chester County.

Stand near this blooming colony of rocky shoals spider lilies, and you’ll enjoy a concert of babbling water and a banquet for the eyes. Dark green stems reminiscent of bamboo shoots support delicate flowers that bring ballerinas to mind.

Dancing flowers upon a stage of rushing water. It’s a performance you’ll not forget.

South Carolina has other colonies. A magnificent colony thrives on Stevens Creek in McCormick County.

In Columbia, you can see clumps of them where the Broad River approaches the Saluda River east of the I-126 bridge.

I’m told a colony exists along the Savannah River Bluffs Heritage Preserve near North Augusta.

I hear too that Lockhart, South Carolina, in Union County has lilies on the Broad River.

In 1783 William Bartram, the first botanist to observe this species, described it as the “odoriferous Pancratium fluitans which almost alone possesses the little rocky islets.” His sighting was at the cataracts of the Savannah River, Augusta, Georgia.

One Sunday, I drove up to Landsford Canal State Park. There I saw the world’s largest colony, thriving on the Catawba River.

Kayakers darted in and out of the majestic clumps, and people viewed them from an observation deck.

I don’t know that Harry Hampton ever saw these splendid lilies, but if he wrote about them, he would have set the record straight. The rocky shoals spider lily, Hymenocallis coronaria, is not a true lily. It’s more closely related to daffodils.

These cousins of daffodils grow on the Catawba and Cahaba Rivers, two similarsounding names. Folks in Alabama call it the Cahaba lily; elsewhere it is known as the shoal lily.

In Georgia, it is usually called the shoals spider lily. Most botanists and conservationists I know call it the “rocky shoals spider lily,” a name that comes from its preferred habitat: rivers where fast-flowing, oxygenrich water runs over rocks.

This stunning perennial grows to three feet in height in direct sunlight. Flowing water carries its seeds away. When they land in a rocky crevice, they can form a colony – if conditions are right.

Alas, man’s dams did away with many rocky shoals.

I love to explore places where I see a world that existed before dams and electricity changed things.

This spring, head to Landsford Canal. The flowers won’t last long, so don’t tarry as old folks would say.

Take photos and enter the Harry Hampton Wildlife Fund’s annual South Carolina Wildlife photo contest. Your lily photographs could end up in South Carolina Wildlife’s calendar.

Whether they do or not, you’ll come away with memories of a place artist Philip Juras described as a “watershed where the sound of a wild river still rises from such a wide swath of bedrock.”

And you’ll never forget the showy, exquisite, rocky shoals spider lilies.