LILIUM AUEATUM, Lindl. 



Gard. Chron. 1862, p. 644, b. ; Bot. Mag. t. 5338 ; Fl. des Serres, 1862-1865, torn. xv. 

 p. 57 ; Fl. Mag. 1862, pi. 121. 



The most splendid creation of the temperate zone unrivalled in pure 

 distinction aristocrat in every line and when the day comes that the 

 House of Veitch must pass, it may well and safely leave its laurels with 

 the " Golden-rayed Lily of Japan." 



This lily was introduced to Europe from the " Land of the Eising Sun " 

 by the late John Gould Veitch in 1862, and about the same time Eobert 

 Fortune sent bulbs to Mr. Standish, a nurseryman of that day. 



Flowered for the first time in July of that year, shown at the great 

 exhibition of the Horticultural Society in the Gardens at South Kensington, 

 the interest and surprise were quite unusual. 



At home in any ordinary garden in any ordinary peaty soil, it need but 

 be left alone to improve and multiply. 



Idle to attempt description of one of Nature's happiest efforts, it is yet 

 permissible to quote Dr. Lindley in the Gardeners' Chronicle the issue of 

 July 12th, 1862 : 



" If ever a flower merited the name of glorious, it is this, which stands 

 far above all other Lilies, whether we regard its size, its sweetness, or its 

 exquisite arrangement of colour. Imagine, upon the end of a purple 

 stem no thicker than a ramrod, and not above 2 ft. high, a saucer- shaped 

 flower at least 10 in. in diameter, composed of six spreading, somewhat crisp 

 parts, rolled back at their points, and having an ivory-white skin thinly 

 strewn with purple points or studs, and oval or roundish prominent, 

 purple stains. To this add in the middle of each of the six parts a 

 broad stripe of light satiny-yellow losing itself gradually in the ivory 

 skin. 



" Place the flower in a situation where side-light is cut off, and no 

 direct light can reach it except from above, when the stripes acquire the 

 appearance of gentle streamlets of Australian gold, and the reader who 

 has not seen it may form some feeble notion of what it is. 



" Fortunately some ten thousand eyes beheld it at South Kensington on 

 the 2nd instant (July 2nd, 1862) and they can fill up the details of the 

 picture." 



447 



