Crinum ‘Marcelle Sheppard’

Roy Works was small, but muscled. Thin, but full of life. He walked me through his crinum fields in Ybor City, Florida, sun blazing down on both of us like it had something to prove. That was the first time we ever met, and we were fast friends before we’d made it out of the field.

We were about the same age. Both gay men. Both crinum guys, though neither of us would’ve claimed that title yet — we were still learning, both of us, from the same woman. Marcelle Sheppard. The crinum lady. The legend, if you’d asked either one of us that day.

Roy handed me a piece of a plant before I left, no ceremony to it, just a clump out of his own field. I took it home, and somewhere along the way — a move, a bad summer, I honestly don’t remember — I lost it. Roy didn’t. He kept his half going, crossed it onto a found scabrum he’d turned up at an old place called Rose City Schoolhouse, and years later he put Marcelle’s name on what came out of it.

Folks who know their crinum will look at the bloom and think digweedii cross — it’s got that look to it. But the size gives it away. Oliganthum runs small, one of the tiniest crinum there is, and this one takes after that side of the family.

For a long time, if you wanted this plant, Marcelle was the only one who had it. She doesn’t deal in plants anymore. Age caught up with that, the way it catches up with everything eventually. So the piece Roy gave me that day in Ybor City — the one I lost, the one he kept — has never actually been for sale. Not once, outside of her.

It grows the way Roy did. Years later, another mentor, Nestor White, gave me the plant again. Reunited, I’ve learned it, and I love it. It grows the way Roy did, come to think of it. Small. Full of life anyway. The bulbs are small and clump up tight, throwing off new offsets every year once they’re settled in. Give it decent conditions and it multiplies.

White petals, each one with a thin line of dark pink running straight down the middle, like somebody drew it on with a fingernail. It’s sweetly fragrant in the morning. You’ll get scapes up to nineteen inches, five flowers apiece in a good year, from late July clean through October — right when the rest of the garden’s given up for the season and this one’s just getting started.

It’s not a fussy plant. Plant it and forget it, same as most crinum. It likes rich soil but won’t sulk in average dirt, and the bulbs can sit out of the ground a good long while if they have to — they’ll wait on you. Full sun’s best, though it takes partial shade without complaint.

We think this one runs more tender than most crinum, so below zone 8, keep it potted and bring it in out of a hard freeze rather than trust it to the ground.

I lost my piece of that plant somewhere between Ybor City and home. Roy never did. He kept his half growing, crossed it, and put a legend’s name on it. Small, muscled, thin, full of life, exactly like the man who grew it: Crinum ‘Marcelle Sheppard.’