AND THEIR CULTURE. 



97 



are pointed and looser, is prevented from effecting its escape below, 

 and so rots the bulb. As this particular kind is so liable to suffer, 

 it would be well to adopt the Japanese method of planting the bulbs 

 sideways to prevent the lodgment of superfluous moisture. A glance 

 at our figure of the bulbs of Longiflorum shows the bulb of that plant, 

 slightly different in shape to that of the Brownii form, but the two 

 types slide into each other almost imperceptibly.* 



L. Candidum. This is doubtless the best known of all Lilies, 

 forming clumps of bright yellow bulbs, which differ from those of 

 Longiflorum mainly in having some of their broader scales terminated 

 by leaves. It is the only evergreen Lily we have, and its golden- 

 margined and striped-foliaged varieties are mainly valuable for winter 

 decoration on this account. In good, rich, well-drained soils this 

 Lily increases rapidly by 

 offsets and scale-bulbs, but 

 it very rarely bears fer- 

 tile seed. It is one of the 

 parents of Testaceum, the 

 bright scarlet Turk's -cap 

 (Chalcedonicum) being the 

 other, and seeing that it is 

 so robust and floriferous, one 

 can only hope that Mr. Frank 

 Miles and others who have 

 taken up the cross-breeding 

 of Lilies, will be successful 

 in improving or varying the 

 forms and colours of some 

 of these free -growing old 

 kinds. Our engraving shows 

 reduced views of the bulbs 

 and scales in different posi- 

 tions. It is very rare, how- 

 ever, to find a solitary bulb 

 of this species, as, indeed, 

 of any other perfectly hardy 

 and vigorous- growing Lily, 

 as these, if planted in rich, 

 deep soils, form large 

 clumps, some of the old flowering bulbs breaking up into four or five 



* Bulbs of Brownii on exposure to light assume a red or reddish brown tint, the scales 

 are broad and all pass up, overlapping, and terminate together at the apex of the bulb, 

 thus giving it the peculiar oblate shape so well given in the figure. 



. The bulb of Japonicum (Colchesterii) is large, ovoid or round, not constricted at the 

 base, not flattened at the top ; white or yellowish-white, not tinted with purple, never 

 ?ed or brown. The scales, which are somewhat narrow and acute at tip, differ in length, 

 the outer ones terminating at about two-thirds of the height of the inner scales. 



L. Candidum (Southern Europe) ; one-third natural 

 size ; cultivated milb ; scales of ditto natural 

 size ; section of ditto and reduced figure of bulb 

 and winter foliage ; colour, yellowish white. 



