One of my first fritillary loves…
When Oscar Wilde speaks of “the diapered fritillary,’ he means the little Checkered Lily (Fritillaria meleagris), for “diapered” is a very old traditional term for either a checkered pattern or the pattern known as “harlequin” or a checkerboard of diamonds.
By the last week of March or the first week of April the Checkered Lilies are poking up their bizarre checkerboard flowers, adding a bit of oddity to such early spring flowers as muscaris, early daffodils, & squill.