These delightful little beauties appear in small numbers every spring, always managing to surprise me with their checkerboard patterning and delicate lantern shaping that allows them to nod in the breeze. Once called leper lilies because of their resemblance to the bells that lepers rang to announce their presence back in the Middle Ages, their Latin name is Fritillaria meleagris, and this particular type is popularly known as snake’s head fritillaries. The word fritillaria is derived from the Latin word fritillus referring to a Roman dice box.