Gymea Lily

It's rather exciting when you wait over five years for a flower and it finally appears! A friend gave me this plant. She had it in a pot and it looked to have at least a year's growth on it then. So I guess the plant must be at least 6 years old. The flower spike has been slowly growing for months and it has taken ages for it to finally open. The spike is not fully open even now but I am not sure how much more it will open in the Queensland winter.
The Gymea Lily (Doryanthes escelsa) grows naturally in open forest and woodland along the New South Wales Coast around Sydney and Newcastle. It makes a splendid specimen plant in a garden and can be bought from nurseries and garden shops. The plant keeps growing after the flower spike dies and I am told that the next flower will be even larger. In ideal conditions the spike can grow up to 6 meters tall.
The base of the plant - this also will grow larger.
The plant showing the flower spike extending up above the surrounding trees and palms.
Gymea lilies have pleasant memories for me. We lived in Newcastle when I was in my teens and my Father showed me this flower growing in the bush. He called it a 'Mountain Lily'. Although it is sometimes called a 'Giant Lily' I cannot find Dad's name for it in the references I consulted.