4 THE BOOK OF THE LILY 



Bulbs without scales may be dealt with even in a 

 careless way without much detriment to the bulb. Thus 

 Daffodils, Tulips, and Snowdrops, and such-like common 

 bulbs, may be kept for months and even a year or 

 longer in a dry state out of the soil, and when planted 

 will develop growth more or less strongly. Not so 

 with Lilies and other scaly bulbs. Their bulbs soon 

 perish or become irretrievably weakened if allowed to 

 become dry. This fact cannot be too strongly impressed 

 upon would-be cultivators of Lilies, and so important 

 it is that it should be printed in red letters. Bulbs of 

 some of the more delicate Lilies will suffer if left in a 

 dry state for even a few days ; the scales shrivel, and 

 the strength of the bulb is thereby impaired. 



As to the duration of Lily bulbs there can be no 

 definite assertion made on that point. It has long been 

 a matter of controversy among Lily specialists, some 

 contending that the parent bulbs are perennial if healthy, 

 others that the parent bulb of some species is annually 

 replaced by new bulbs developed either by division or 

 offsets. This, however, does not greatly concern the 

 tyro in Lily culture. Whatever may be the behaviour 

 of bulbs under the artificial conditions of cultivation, 

 it may be assumed that in a state of nature their 

 increase or continuity of growth is maintained by the 

 splitting up of the parent bulb as well as by bulblets, 

 seed, and stem bulbils. 



These methods are nature's way of continuing the 

 growth and increase of the species, and it is well for 

 the cultivator to know it, as natural conditions should 

 be his guide. 



GEOGRAPHY OF WILD LILIES. Lilies are essentially 

 northern world plants, and are native to a zone extending 

 from the extreme east in Japan to the extreme west in 

 California. 



This Lily zone is comparatively narrow, as the northern 



