Wild Yellow, Meadow or Field Lily; Canada 



Lily 



(Lilium Canadense) Lily family 



Flowers Yellow to orange-red, of a deeper shade within, and 

 speckled with dark reddish-brown dots. One or several (rarely 

 many) nodding on long peduncles from the summit. Perianth 

 bell-shaped, of 6 spreading segments 2 to 3 in. long, their 

 tips curved backward to the middle; 6 stamens, with reddish- 

 brown linear anthers; i pistil, club-shaped; the stigma 3- 

 lobed. Stem : 2 to 5 ft. tall, leafy, from a bulbous rootstock 

 composed of numerous fleshy white scales. Leaves: Lance- 

 shaped, to oblong; usually in whorls of fours to tens, or some 

 alternate. Fruit: An erect, oblong, 3-celled capsule, the 

 flat, horizontal seeds packed in 2 rows in each cavity. 



Preferred Habitat Swamps, low meadows, moist fields. 



Flowering Season June July. 



Distribution Nova Scotia to Georgia, westward beyond the Mis- 

 sissippi. 



Not our gorgeous lilies that brighten the low-lying meadows 

 in early summer with pendent, swaying bells; possibly not a true 

 lily at all was chosen to illustrate the truth which those who 

 listened to the Sermon on the Mount, and we, equally anxious, 

 foolishly overburdened folk of to-day, so little comprehend. 



" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they 

 spin : 



"And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 

 like one of these." 



Opinions differ as to the lily of Scripture. Eastern peoples use 

 the same word interchangeably for the tulip, anemone, ranunculus, 

 iris, the water-lilies, and those of the field. The superb scarlet 

 martagon lily (L. chalcedonicum) , grown in gardens here, is not 

 uncommon wild in Palestine ; but whoever has seen the large 

 anemones there "carpeting every plain and luxuriantly pervading 

 the land" is inclined to believe that Jesus, who always chose the 

 most familiar objects in the daily life of His simple listeners to 

 illustrate His teachings, rested His eyes on the slopes about Him 

 glowing with anemones in all their matchless loveliness. What 

 flower served Him then matters not at all. It is enough that 

 scientists now more plainly than ever before see the universal 

 application of the illustration the more deeply they study nature, 

 and can include their " little brothers of the air " and the humblest 

 flower at their feet when they say with Paul, "In God we live 

 and move and have our being." 



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