18$ NOTES ON LILIES 



course of experiments, be followed in their growth distinctly, until they 

 become flowering- plants, leaving no room, whatever, for those who are 

 otherwise biassed or prejudiced, to theorize on the subject. 



3. " It is a fact which science* has placed beyond a doubt, that, if Lilies 

 do not all bloom at the same time, they should not all be transplanted at the 

 same time. Beginning, therefore, eight or ten days after the Lilies which 

 flower first have shed their bloom, we go on lifting and transplanting from 

 time to time, until October, during the most agreeable part of the year, 

 and during a period, too, when amateurs have a good deal of spare time 

 on their hands, which might be turned much to their own advantage, and, 

 at the same time, to the advantage of our professional growers." 



4. "I know of no other plants, though there may be some, which we can 

 compare in their underground action with the Lily. Of it there is 

 undoubtedly an annual bloom, but not from the same bulb, though many 

 who have not studied the matter sufficiently, believe it is. From what I 

 have already said, it may be seen, that while one bulb is flourishing in its 

 first and only bloom, another bulb within it, mark these words, ' within 

 it,' not outside, or offsets of any description whatever, another bulb, a 

 new bulb within it, is progressing in its growth, so as to be enabled to 

 bloom next year, in the place of the one now blooming, which will then 

 be dead, thus keeping up a yearly bloorn from successional bulbs "ad 

 infinitum," if properly cultivated. There is, therefore, no foundation what- 

 ever for saying that, the same (?) bulb goes on living and blooming for an 

 indefinite period, and then dies of exhaustion, or old age. A greater 

 fallacy than this could not be uttered ; for the term of a Lily's existence, 

 from the period of germination, till the final decay of the plant, is so 

 designed by nature, as not to exceed two years. It is, thus, that every 

 year witnesses a birth and death ; that is the birth of the seed bud, and 

 the death of the flowering bulb, being the youngest and the oldest of the 

 4 three generations in one' the new bulbs being always intermediate 

 between these two." Garden, vol. 12, p. 557. 



5. " Some Lily growers call the bulb 'the root of the matter,' but this is 

 incorrect. The bulb is a permanently abbreviated stem, clothed with 

 scales, which are imperfect, and thickened leaves. The new bulb does 

 not send up a stern during the first summer, but elaborates what it receives 

 from the roots into organic or nourishing matter, and stores it up for 

 future use in the core, and in the cells of the scales born on the core, which 

 -enlarge, and becomes more fleshy as the nourishing matter accumulates. 

 When vegetation becomes active in the following spring', the new stem 

 and the successional bulbule within the new bulb, fed by this stock of 

 nourishment, grow with great vigour, and the stern produces leaves, and 

 at last flowers. When the plant has continued in flower for some time, 

 longer or shorter, according to the quantity of nourishment stored up, the 

 stock will then become exhausted, and by using the microscope it will he 



* Dimedin puts it rather too strongly, lie omits to give chapter and verse for his 

 *' fact, " and I cannot recall any reference. Nature is generally elastic and accommodating, 

 and, as but little new root growth is made by any Lilies (except L. Candidum and its 

 allies) in September, we really have August, September, and most of October for our 

 operations, and we can choose the time which best suits our own convenience. 



