LILIUM CANADENSE. 

 AMERICAN YELLOW LILY. 



NATURAL ORDER. LILIACE/EA. 



LiLiUM Canadense, LiniiJEUs. — Leaves ihree-veined, mostly verticillate, lanceolate, the veins 

 hairy beneath; peduncles terminal, elongated, usually by threes; flowers nodding, the 

 segments spreading, never revolute. Bulb scaly. Stem round, two to four feet high, 

 surrounded by several remote whorls, each consisting of four to six leaves, and often a few 

 scattered ones at the base. These are two to three inches long by the half to one inch 

 wide. Flowers one to three, sometimes seven to twenty, pendulous, yellow, or orange- 

 colored, spotted with dark purple inside. (Wood's Class-Book of Bohiiiy. See also 

 Gray's Botany of the Northern United States, and Chapman's Flora of the Southern 

 United States.) 



ONGFELLOW, in his beautiful poem of "Flowers," 

 sings of 



"Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, 

 Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day." 



He may have had a sunflower in his mind, or it may have been 

 many another flower ; but there are few things "in the sunlight 

 shining," and flaunting their "blossoms in the eye of day" more 

 gorgeously than the various species of our native lilies. Indeed 

 the Lily is ever beautiful, is famed for its loveliness in all parts 

 of the world, and has been celebrated in song and story in all 

 ages. Its very name is contemporaneous with history, having 

 been used by Homer; and its literal meaning is "the most 

 charming of all flowers." The ancients imagined that the red 

 Lily was the first to be created, and modern authors believe that 

 the martagon Lily is the species they referred to. The Latin 

 writers speak of it as "Lilium intortum ;" and as the martagon 

 turns its petals very much back upon itself, it seems to agree 

 so far with dieir descripdon. As is the case with most of the 



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