Addisonia 57 



(Plate 253) 



LILIUM WARLEYENSE 

 Miss Willmott's Lily 



Native of central China 



Family LiiviACEAS IyiLY Family 



Lilium warleyense Hort. Gard. Chron. III. 52: 15. 6 Jl 1912. — Jour. Roy. Hort. 



Soc. 38 : cxlvi./. 118. 8 N 1912. 

 Lilium (Martagon) Willmottiae E. H. Wilson, Kew Bull. 1913 : 266. 24 S 1913. 



This lily was discovered in the province of Hupeh, China, by 

 Mr. E. H. Wilson, in 1907. Plants from the garden of Miss Will- 

 mott at Great Warley, England, were exhibited before the Royal 

 Horticultural Society in July, 1912, and were awarded a first- class 

 certificate. This fact was reported immediately in the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, which contains the first published description of this 

 lily, under the name " Lilium warleyense (?)." A few months 

 later the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society described the 

 plant in a similar manner and gave a figure taken from the Gar- 

 deners' Magazine. Mr. Wilson, in the Kew Bulletin, published 

 a I,atin description under the name Lilium Willmottiae, but this 

 came the following year. The plant here illustrated grew at the 

 New York Botanical Garden from a bulb purchased from F. H. 

 Horsford. 



Although this is a hardy lily, wintering in New England without 

 protection, it is not common in cultivation. It blooms about the 

 middle of July, and a single stalk may bear as many as twenty to 

 thirty flowers, opening a few at a time. Of the better known lilies, 

 the one this species most closely resembles is Lilium Henryi, es- 

 pecially in the form of the flowers and in the general appearance of 

 the flower cluster and capsules ; but the stems are less tall, the leaves 

 less broad, and the flowers more brightly colored than those of 

 Lilium Henryi. Individual plants of Lilium warleyense have set 

 seed to self-pollination at the New York Botanical Garden, but 

 the seedlings have not as yet been grown. 



The bulb of Miss WiUmott's lily is white, broadly ovoid, one to 

 three inches in diameter, with numerous broadly overlapping scales. 

 The stems are smooth, slender and weak, three to five feet tall, 

 and are inconspicuously marked with dark reddish spots. The 

 leaves are numerous, spirally arranged, sessile; they are linear- 

 lanceolate, acute, three to five inches long, and one eighth to one 



