On a Thursday afternoon of last year, August 19, 2010, I walked outside and noticed that the pretty light-pink flowers in the pictures above had been removed without my permission and were now conspicuously absent. I have these plants growing in my front yard, and somebody had taken the blooms while they were still flower buds, before they had a chance to open up and blossom. Where the flower buds had been, I saw only the headless portion of remaining stalk, the flower bud and long stem missing. I suspected then that someone may have come onto the property, possibly in the dark of night or early morning, and stolen the budding flowers from the bulbous plants growing on the property, and that's why my flower buds were no longer there. Upon further examination, I saw that the top ends of some of the headless stalks had uneven edges, whereas some had clean cut edges, indicating that whoever stole the flower buds from the property used two different methods to remove the desired items, perhaps knife, scissors, or other sharp-bladed object on some, and snapping off a few of the others. The person(s) who did this left one stalk already in bloom, possibly because the buds are of greatest value when they have not bloomed yet. Flower thief? Flower poacher? Blossom bandit? Bloom burglar? I'm not sure, but in researching why someone would take my flowers, I ascertained that the scientific name for the plant in question is Lycoris squamigera, otherwise known as surprise lily, resurrection lily, or naked lady, and the ones pictured are the short-stamen variety. I tried to take a photo of what happened to my plants, but at the time my digital camera was not working correctly. Even though the perpetrator would unlikely ever be caught (I mean, how do you trace stolen flowers when I didn't do anything to mark them in any way) and it would probably be a waste of time, I went online and filed an Oakland police report. Then I stewed in my own righteous anger, mad at whoever would do such a dastardly thing as steal someone else's flowers from their front yard. I counted 11 of my flower buds taken from me.
Upon further investigation, I discovered I am not the only one this has happened to. Many parties, besides me, from people in homes with flowers in their gardens to destinations like the San Francisco Golden Gate Park, have reported flower theft, or flower poaching, or bloom snipping, or blossom burglary. Apparently, flowers can bring you $1 to $5 each, and the unscrupulous florists who buy the ill-gotten goods may not want to ask a lot of questions. Whoever thought your friendly neighborhood floral arrangement specialist and bouquet shopkeeper might be some shady criminal dealing in stolen goods? The police are onto the thefts, though. Thieves and the florists who buy from them have gotten caught with covertly-marked stems, and some plants worth as much as $1000 per have microchips embedded inside to indicate that they belong to someone else.
