202 



NOTES ON LILIES 



stage of beiug a fully developed flowering btilh, whereas the seed-bud in the 

 flowering hitlli, which is graduated in the autumn, will in eight months be 

 sending down strong roots, in two months more it will be nearly of adult 

 size, and in six weeks from this time it may safely be detached from the 

 ■decaying remains of its parent, and transplanted, if necessary, where it 

 ■will bloom next summer. The rapidity of growth in the new hidb is not 

 generally known, and has, therefore, given rise to very mistaken notions 

 on the i)art of those who dip little deeper than the outward appearance 

 of the hulb:'— Garden, vol. J 2, p. 50-3. 



§ 23. " I cannot agree with Dunedin in all his views, yet considerable 

 weight must be attached to the statements of a Lily cultivator, who, in his 

 own words, ' has for many years, lived with, and been in the habit of watch- 

 ing the underground life of Lilies, from the most minute seed-bud and the 

 smallest offset, to their full development, and even after that ; and who has 

 planted, for this purpose, hundreds of offsets, as well as fully developed 

 bulbs, and has taken up a portion, now and then, for examination by 

 dissection or otherwise ' ^[y own views are as follows ; that new growth 

 (see page 14) takes place every year from a bud or buds at the base of the 

 (flower') stem. I do not always find these situate in the exact place 

 pointed out by Dunedin in his woodcut (see page 1*J4).* I found, in March, 

 in several bulbs of Uinhellatuin, the base of the old stem alive, and pink- 

 <5oloured, and with a bud between it and the new stem, and, it is quite evident, 

 that in many Lilies there must be numerous buds started into growth, as 

 we frequently find three, four, and sometimes five, or even more, new 

 growths starting from the centre of a bulb, numerous bulblets, arising from 

 injured scales, and also from the side of the central axis, even to the 

 number of fifty or more, and this always takes place, more or less, when a 

 bulb breaks up, or in other words, happens when its stem-growth has been 

 destroyed, either by cutting down wilfully, as ' Amateur ' did (seepage 57), 

 or by accident, or by sharp spring frosts ; therefore, I cannot lay the stress 

 that Dunedin does on the germ of tbe future growth being altvaijs found in 

 one and the same place ; in fact, he states (page 197) that 'there is no genus 

 in which the position of the seed-bud varies so much as in the Lily.' It 

 is much to be regretted that Dunedin did not always state on what kinds 

 of Lilies he had experimented. It is quite clear that Maria<jon growth is 

 very different from that of the Arrhelirioa group, to which latter, I should 

 suppose his remarks chiefly apply ; while the growth of the llhizomatous 

 section, such as Pardalinuni and Superhura, and that of the Thunhergianum 

 section, have each special differences ;■ the habit of Giganteum, again, is 

 peculiar. This Lil}-, Giganteum, either when grown from offsets or seed, 

 builds up its bulb, year by year, larger and larger, making fresh internal 

 growth until it arrives at a flowering size, in from three (from offsets) to 

 five years (from seed) ; during the process of flowering, the old bulb then 

 and there disappears, seemingly drawn up and absorbed in the gigantic 

 stem-growth, leaving from 3 to 5 or more offsets, about the size of a large 



* In Garden, vol. II, p. 260, Dunedin writes " the true or legitimate seed-lnid has a 

 predetermined or settleil position in the parent biclb, namely, on tlie op^wsite side of 

 the ohl flower stem, the new flower stem being always between them." 



