Found beside a parking lot one morning, and then I returned with my phone camera later that day.
From above.
It appears to be a lily of some kind, a small, feral one.
I went back again a few weeks later to get seeds, but alas, someone had trimmed it flush with the ground in their zeal to tidy up the strip between the parking lot and the sidewalk. Next year, if it blooms again, I may leave a marker of some kind so I can sneak back, then talk to the property owner about 1. getting seeds or 2. digging it up and taking it home, then returning the next year’s additional bulb. None of the other landscaping around the business has that sort of flower, and I’ve never seen other flowers in that dirt trough between sidewalk and parking lot.
‘Tis a mystery.
Cat Rotator's Quarterly 
So long as it’s not a triffid.
I thought of the strange “mind-controlling” flowers in one Original Series Star Trek. đŸ˜€
Rain lily. Grows wild in the hill country of Texas.
Was coming to say this– it also looks like some that are up in Washington.
https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/41507/
Yep – rain lily. There’s a huge crop of them across the road from my house. They come up four or five days after a good rain.
Biollante. Larval stage.
It’s a ghost lily.
It is said that when someone dies tragically, unshriven, and unmourned, their soul is trapped in such a plant for the space of a season.
If you look closely, the light of the moon will show the tearful face of the departed within the drops of dew.
Should you pluck the flower and lay it upon the grave of the departed, they will bless you to the best of their meager ability.
But should you cut it, the poor spirit will be bound to you, and you shall be haunted the rest of your days.
We have those in the back yard; I sometimes delay mowing just to let them blood. Unfortunately, the treatment to remove goatheads also tends to get them. Darn it.
Yep, rain lily.
I have seen the bulbs for sale at a local nursery specializing in local plants and wildflowers. There probably is an existing bulb two or three inches below where this one was blooming.
(not that I am suggesting digging it up and taking it away…}
*very serious kitty face* No, no. None of my readers would ever suggest, let alone countenance, bulb rustling. *sincere kitty nod, still straight faced*
*completely innocent expression*
Heavens forfend that you would ever consider an interest in wildflower bulb liberation!
*end innocent expression*
Honestly, the things are as common as anything around here. I would have said pig tracks, but those are honestly a bit less common in suburbia. But I do envy the generous crop of them across the road…
(dusts off his best innocent expression)
Perish the thought!
Thank you for posting this. I needed some flower zen today.