By Clyde Noel

Town Crier Correspondent

Don’t tell the police, but there are naked ladies popping up all over Los Altos in the strangest of places.

I saw them standing tall on San Antonio Road. This morning when I parked my car on Fourth Street, another group all dressed in pink were waiting for someone to acknowledge their beauty.

For the last two weeks these naked ladies could be found almost anywhere, even in weed-infested vacant lots and manicured gardens.

They are tall, curvaceous and rosy pink and stand out like a skeleton at a Weight Watchers convention. But don’t call the police and complain about indecent exposure, these naked ladies can be beautiful to the eyes of the most innocent child.

According to Sunset’s Western Garden Book, these naked ladies are amaryllis belladonna. Sometimes people call them belladonna lilies or Jerusalem lilies; but this time of year they are called good old “naked ladies.”

The reason for their spirited and racy name is obvious. They are pink fragrant flowers blooming at the top of 2-3 feet high stalks that happen to be totally leafless - “naked” to the uninitiated.

The trumpetlike flowers put on a show in August, opening six to 12 flowers a cluster, about three inches in diameter. Native to South Africa, they were brought here by settlers years ago.

Some of the ladies grow in almost any soil. They don’t drink much and you can set the bulb right on top of the ground and they will grow.

Not all of them are dressed in light pink. Some bloom in red, mauve and white, usually with a contrasting yellow throat.

Where is their cover of leaves? These ladies have a strange life cycle. The straplike deep green leaves appear in the spring and die away long before a single lady blooms. By June, their coat of leaves is gone.

I know some church widows who don’t like to see the ladies standing around naked so they plant lily of the Nile or Shasta daisies around the stems to hide the bareness of the ladies’ long legs.

On the other hand, some of the gardeners I know like to see them planted alone so they stand out naked in their beauty.

Like some women I know, they don’t like to be disturbed. If you invade their privacy during the wrong season, they have a temper tantrum and refuse to bloom for years. They have sisters, named amaryllis hippeastrum. These ladies are popular inside the house and are most commonly found around Christmas.

Prolific, garden-tough ladies or showy “bells of the bulb,” these two sisters can brighten up your day with elegance and gracefulness.

Clyde Noel is a gardening aficionado, among his many talents.