118 NOTES ON LILIES 



In concluding these remarks on Lily bulbs, it may be as well to 

 give a short summary of the whole. Lily bulbs vary in form and 

 colour, according as the soil in which they are grown is dense or 

 porous ; but fresh bulbs of all the distinct types or species are easily 

 recognizable, and that even from the earliest stages after propagation 

 by means of seed. The practice of drying off Lily bulbs, however 

 convenient or necessary it may be for trade purposes, is a bad practice, 

 and should never be adopted by cultivators, inasmuch as no well- 

 planted Lily bulb is injured by the rainfall and cold of our climate, 

 although it may be necessary to protect its young growth occasionally. 

 The typical forms of Lily bulbs are ovoid, with closely-imbricated 

 and lance-shaped scales ; globose or orange-shaped, with broad, 

 oblong, pointed scales ; rhizomatous, having the scales either dis- 

 tributed regularly along the upper part of the rhizome, or gathered 

 together in the form of bulbs at indefinite intervals. The typical 

 scales of Lily bulbs are lance-shaped, or oblong and pointed, some 

 of the Japanese, one European, and several American kinds having 

 much thickened, articulated, or jointed scales. Well-nourished 

 flowering bulbs increase in size by the increment or extension of new 

 buds or growth ; if starved, however, the bulbs become absorbed in 

 flowering, and of course die. The propagation of Lilies is effected 

 by seeds, bulb-division, planting old bulb scales, or by layering the 

 flowering-stems after having removed the young flower-buds. The 

 Dutch, English, and Japanese have for many years been engaged in 

 producing seminal varieties; hence some of the natural lines of 

 demarcation which formerly existed between the species have become 

 indistinct. 



CHAPTER IX. 



ME. BAKER'S SYNOPSIS OF ALL THE KNOWN LILIES, 



From the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1875, and the Garden, vol. 7., p. 29? 

 (by permission), 



WlTH EXTEACTS FROM HIS MONOGRAPH ON THE REVISION OF THE GENERA AND SPECIES'- 



OF TULIPE^E. Linn. Soc. Journal Botany, vol. 14. 



As I have read from week to week the interesting papers on Lilies, 

 new and old, that have appeared, I have been reminded of the great 

 want which there is, of a systematic revision of the genus, and of 

 some document in which all the species and leading varieties now 

 known, should be arranged in a systematic order, and so defined that,, 

 by its means, miscellaneous garden and dried specimens coming to 

 hand from time to time might be readily named, and their place in 

 relation to other forms understood. I have often wondered that the 

 systematic literature of a set of plants that have been such deserved 



