420 FOKEIGN NOTICES. 



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Toh\c^\) ^o]kc$. 



The Giant Lily — Lilhnn g'lgante^tm of Wallicii; LiUnm conVtfolhnn of Dox. — This 

 magnificent Lily has been one of the chief novelties at the late English shows ; we trust 

 it will soon find its way across the water. We believe it will be sufficiently hardy for open 

 ground culture in our middle and southern States, at least; but even if it requires green- 

 house protection, it will be a great acquisition. Only imagine a Lily ten feet high, with 

 leaves ten to twelve inches long, and eight inches wide, " Avith white flowers proportionably 

 large and delightfully fragrant !" "We (j^uote the following account of it from '•'■Paxloii's 

 Floicer Garden : 



" The discovery of this Prince of Lilies we owe to Dr. "Wallicii, who detected it in moist ehady 

 places on Sbeopore in Nepal. 'This majestic Lily,' he says, 'grows sometimes to a size which is 

 quite astonishing ; a fruit-bearing specimen of the whole plant, which is destined for the filuseum 

 of the lion. East India Company, measures full ten feet from the base of tlie stem to its apex. 

 The flowers are proportionably large and delightfully fragrant, not unlike those of the common 

 white Lily.' Nor does it degenerate in cultivation ; the flowering plant having attained a height 

 of ten feet in one season ; the flower portion occupying twenty inches. Such a raceme of flowei-s, 

 accompanied by leaves measuring ten to twelve iuclies long and eight inches broad, must have 

 afibrded a striking spectacle. Baron HiiGEL found the plant in the Peer Punjiil pass of the Hima- 

 laya, leading into Kashmeer ; and we believe that Drs. Thompson and Hooker met with it abund- 

 antly in other portions of that vast range of hills. The remainder of our account shall be taken 

 from Dr. Balfour's notes, chiefly drawn up from the living plant at Comely Bank near Edinburgh. 

 'Major SIaddex says the Liliuyn gigantcwn is common in the damp thick forests of the Himalaya, 

 the pi'ovinces of Kamaon, Gurwhal, and Busehur, in all of which he has frequently met with it. 

 It grows in rich black mold, the bulb close to the surface, at from '7500 to 9000 feet above the 

 level of the sea, where it is covered with snow from November to April, or thereabout. The 

 hollow stems are commonly from six to nine feet high, and are used for musical pipes. The fruit 

 ripens in November and December. Stem straight, cylindrical, smooth, gradually attenuated to 

 the apex, nearly ten feet high, five and a half inches in circmuferenee at the base, green, with a 

 reddish-purple hue at the upper part. Leaves alternate, scattered, the internodes varying in 

 length, petiolate, broadly ovate, cordate, acuminate, shining dark green above, paler below, 

 venation reticulated, having an evident midrib, with the veins coming off' from it ending in an 

 intra-marginal vein ; lower leaves with long petioles, very large, ten to twelve inches long, eight 

 inches broad, becoming gradually smaller in ascending; upper leaves small, sessile, ovate, acute. 

 Petioles of lower leaves twelve to fourteen inches long, thick, broad, and somewhat sheathing at 

 the base, lower surface convex, upper with a deep and broad furrow ; petioles of upper leaves 

 short. Bracts ovate, acute, caducous, leaving a semilunar scar. Flowers white, with purple 

 sheaths, greenish below, infundibuliform-campanulate, inclined downwards, twelve on the raceme, 

 fragrant ; tube greenish, two inches in circumference at the base, gradually ddating upwards ; 

 limb slightly revolute ; leaves of the perianth oblong-spathulate, three outer with slight purple 

 streaks inside, three inner rather broader, with a deep purple tinge on the inside, and with a 

 prominent ridge on the outside, suleated on either side, and two elevated ridges on the inner 

 surface separated by a shallow groove.' — Bot. Mag., t. 4673. There is great reason to hope that 

 this noble plant, of which Messrs. VEiTcn have raised an abundance, wUl prove hardy. At 

 it can require nothing more than a covering of ashes in winter." 



