202 NOTES ON LILIES 



stage of being a fully developed flowering lull, whereas the seed-bud in the 

 flowering bulb, which is graduated in the autumn, will in eight months be 

 sending down strong roots, in two months more it will be nearly of adult 

 size, and in six weeks from this time it may safely be detached from the 

 decaying remains of its parent, and transplanted, if necessary, where it 

 will bloom next summer. The rapidity of growth in the new bulb is not 

 generally known, and has, therefore, given rise to very mistaken notions 

 on the part of those who dip little deeper than the outward appearance 

 of the bulb." Garden, vol. J 2, p. 505. 



23. " I cannot agree with Dunedin in all his views, yet considerable 

 weight must be attached to the statements of a Lily cultivator, who, in his 

 own words, ' has for many years, lived with, and been in the habit of watch- 

 ing the underground life of Lilies, from the most minute seed-bud and the 

 smallest offset, to their full development, and even after that ; and who has 

 planted, for this purpose, hundreds of offsets, as well as fully developed 

 bulbs, and has taken up a portion, now and then, for examination by 

 dissection or otherwise ' My own views are as follows ; that new growth 

 (see page 14) takes place every year from a bud or buds at the base of the 

 {flower) stem. I do not always find these situate in the exact place 

 pointed out by Dunedin in his woodcut (see page 194).* I found, in March, 

 in several bulbs of Umbellatam, the base of the old stem alive, and pink- 

 coloured, and with a bud between it and the new stem, and, it is quite evident, 

 that in many Lilies there must be numerous buds started into growth, as 

 we frequently find three, four, and sometimes five, or even more, new 

 growths starting from the centre of a bulb, numerous bulblets, arising from 

 injured scales, and also from the side of the central axis, even to the 

 number of fifty or more, and this always takes place, more or less, when a 

 bulb breaks up, or in other words, happens when its stem-growth has been 

 destroyed, either by cutting down wilfully, as ' Amateur ' did (seepage 57), 

 or by accident, or by sharp spring frosts ; therefore, I cannot lay the stress 

 that Dunedin does on the germ of the future growth being ahvays found in 

 one and the same place ; in fact, he states (page 197) that' there is no genus 

 in which the position of the seed-bud varies so much as in the Lily.' It 

 is much to be regretted that Dunedin did not always state on what kinds 

 of Lilies he had experimented. It is quite clear that Martagon growth is 

 very different from that of the ArcJielirion group, to which latter, I should 

 suppose his remarks chiefly apply ; while the growth of the E/hizomatous 

 section, such as Pardalimim and Superlum, and that of the Thunlergianum 

 section, have each special differences ; the habit of Giganteum, again, is 

 peculiar. This Lily, Giganteum, either when grown from offsets or seed, 

 builds up its bulb, year by year, larger and larger, making fresh internal 

 growth until it arrives at a flowering 1 size, in from three (from offsets) to 

 five years (from seed) ; during the process of flowering, the old bulb then 

 and there disappears, seemingly drawn up and absorbed in the gigantic 

 stem-growth, leaving from 3 to 5 or more offsets, about the size of a large 



* In Garden, vol. 11, p. 260, Dunedin writes "the true or legitimate seed-bud lias a 

 predetermined or settled position in the parent bulb, namely, on the opposite side of 

 the old flower stem, the new flower stem being always between them." 



