In Japan(Tokyo) this flower is a very special and meaningful plant of this time of the year, around autumnal equinox. These Lycoris radiata appear from nowhere. Every time I tried to catch a moment, when they started to be visible, yes, because they are only stems. But in a short while there is a miracle, lots of bright flowers in parks, gardens, shrines, along streets and just smelly with gas roads. I am still wonder in some of them never planted and just grow wild? In Japanese their name is higanbana, what translated as higan-equinox +bana(hana)-flower, so it is flower blooming during autumnal equinox, when dead people "coming" to meet their relatives. I think these sites explain the stories about being separated flowers and leaves. Leaves of Lycoris radiata in Tokyo start to appear soon after bloom, end of October-November, but usually they are not noticeable by most people even they are good green colored and nice shaped. http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.ca/2006/07/spider-lilies-higanbana.html http://botanyboy.org/lycoris-radiata-japans-red-spider-lily/ I would like to share my pictures of the Kinchakuda park(Saitama pref.) in where they grow along the river bank, there is festival at this time and many people come to enjoy the view and beauty. Last picture is the rear sign, what not suppose to be, Flowers and leaves are together, but it is not exactly true, one of the flower is very late blooming and leaves are from others which are long out of bloom.
Amazing photos and such an interesting posting! The links had some surprising information too. The first one mentioned there being possibly as many as 900 Japanese names for this plant. And the second one mentions that the Korean and Japanese plants are sterile, so all those plants had to have been distributed by human planting. That would tend to answer your question about whether they could be growing wild, unless the statement in the blog is not correct.
