It looks like whatever it is, the damage was not done recently, or at least not within the last few days. I believe I'm seeing areas that are blemish-free where leaves have elongated from the center of the crown. That would imply (to me) that the damage(?) is cosmetic.

Hey folks so here's how my story ended....so I live in a maintenance free community..they take care of the grass and shrubs. ..been doing it for years....Come to find out they switched to a new lawn treatment product...first time trying it..A novice guy applied it on a windy day. It killed any ornamental flower it touched. ..boy you should see the damage that his careless application did!!! My flowers survived.. (the company bought me some new lillies to add to my garden )...my neighbors flowers were killed ...and they had a lot!!!!.....mystery solved...thanks to all of u who weighed in on my situation!!!!!

So glad you posted the answer to the problem! I had never seen anything like that before.

While the cause is HORRIBLE, it is good to know what it was. Great that they gave you some lillies, and I hope that they replaced the rest of the plants as well.

There goes my dream of seeing a pterodactyl.

Thanks for letting us know. It's such a shame that this happened to you. I hope your plants recover, and that the person who did this will get some much needed retraining!

Thanks Seedfork, Natalie and Chelly for your responses. ...I was absolutely ticked when I found out what happened. ..but I was kinda relieved to know...The I could stop being half scared to touch the plants!!! Natalie. ..keep the faith the pterodactyl might show up...

It was a really good mystery! Or a really bad mystery, depending on how you look at it. But having it solved is the good part, even though it was really bad.

So it was a juvenile Pteradactyl! Glad you were able to find the cause.

sounds like the grounds keepers need to update their training...