16 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 376 



but in view of the labor involved in lifting the bulbs in the fall, little is 

 gained by this procedure. Lily seeds are slow and rather erratic in germi- 

 nating, and when one is on the point of consigning them to the trash heap 

 after considerable patient waiting, the seeds will often be found starting 

 to germinate. 



Seed of Lilium philippinense and its seedling strains, also an English variety 

 known as White Queen, are available to those who are interested in the 

 culture of lilies from seeds. 



Results of forcing tests not only with the Field Station hybrids but 

 with some one hundred hybrid lily bulbs from the United States Horti- 

 cultural Station at Beltsville, Maryland, indicate that the domestic culture 

 of lily bulbs for greenhouse forcing has possibilities. Selected hybrid 

 seedlings from crosses between Lilium longiflorum gigantcwn, Creole lily, and 

 erabu have been grown and flowered at VN^altham under glass with remark- 

 ably good success. The quality and number of blooms produced by seedlings 

 from crosses between L. longiUorum gigantctim and Creole lilies, as shown 

 in Figure 2, were comparable in many respects to those of the commercial 

 varieties shown in Figure 2. Many of the hybrid Creole-giganteum 

 seedlings averaged 5 blooms per bulb, with a number of the individuals 

 producing as high as 6 flowers per bulb. Hybrid seedling lily bulbs 

 harvested from the field on October 1 and air-dried for four weeks forced 

 as well as those pre-cured for the same interval of time and then kept for 

 four weeks in cold storage at 36° F. prior to forcing. One outstanding 

 feature of lilies grown from seed is the response of such bulbs to green- 

 house forcing conditions. The plants grow very rapidly and there is 

 much less uneven growth of individual plants than with regular bulb 

 stock. 



Cold Storage of Cut Lily Flowers 



The use of low temperatures under refrigerator conditions is confined 

 chiefly to storage of cut flowers for relatively short periods of time and 

 during transportation over long distances. It has even been suggested 

 that the flower business would be better oflf if no refrigerators were used 

 at all. Be that as it may, the following observations on the holding of 

 Easter lily blooms may be of some interest. 



Fifty or more stems of cut lily flowers were stored in containers with 

 water in a refrigerated cellar on April 18 at a temperature of 38°-40'' F. 

 The lilies were in excellent condition with two and three blooms wide 

 open on each stalk and buds in various stages of opening. These lily 

 blooms were forgotten until discovered on June 6, and surprisingly the 

 blooms were as crisp and fresh as the day they were cut, seven weeks 

 previously. A number of stalks were taken out and the blooms which 

 had been open seven weeks in cold storage kept well for four to five days 

 under home conditions. The half open blooms developed sufficiently to 

 be useful in design work, but less mature buds did not open satisfactorily. 

 The remaining stalks of lily flowers were observed a week later and they 

 were still in good condition. Just iiow much longer than eight weeks 

 the blooms might have been kept is not known, for by accident the flowers 

 were discarded before final observations were made. 



Such a method of keeping lily blooms is not advocated as a general 

 practice but might well be a means of salvaging what good blooms remain 



