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Gray's Lily is not a flower you are likely to see unless you go to a few very specific locations, at exactly the right time - but it is so beautiful I could not resist including it. This is a rare lily, growing in our area in only a few small locations - high balds and meadows, from Buncombe county north, along the border with Tennessee and into Virginia. I found it blooming on the Roan Mountain ridges and balds in late June. Gray's Lily grows about 24" high, forming a single central flower stalk with several whorls of deep green leaves along the stem. Each leaf is broader towards the tip than the stem end. One or two flowers appear at the top of the stem. The 6-petaled bell-like flowers are nodding-to-horizontal, and the petals are only slightly spread, so you don't get to see the deeply-speckled interior unless you bend down to look inside.  The only other similar lily would be the Canada Lily (L. canadense) which also has nodding, speckled flowers that do not recurve their petals. But the Canada Lily (which is about equally unusual in our area) is more likely to be yellow or orange, not such a deep red, and Gray's is more heavily speckled. The other lilies you might see more commonly around here include the Turk's Cap Lily and Michaux's Lily. Both those species have nodding, speckled flowers with recurved petals- tips that bend back towards the base of the flower.