2Ttoo gJartocn Jfaborftes. 183 



on stems eight to nine feet high. I have never 

 seen it as brilliant under cultivation as it occurs 

 wild in the localities referred to. Neither have I 

 ever seen the lemon-yellow Canadense as vividly 

 colored or as tall as it occurs near New London, 

 Conn. Fine color and tall stalks with L. super- 

 bum under cultivation, however, will largely de- 

 pend upon good selection made in the native 

 habitat. This year a disease seems to have af- 

 fected L. superbum under cultivation in some 

 places, causing the stems to shrivel and the 

 leaves to rot off. 



Of the graceful Turk's-caps or turbans there 

 are none, I think, unless I except the rare form 

 of L. superbum, equal to the red Canadense, our 

 own wild wood-lily. I know of no lily more 

 graceful or stately. It is as distinctly American 

 as the cardinal-flower or the pink lady's-slipper. 

 Something it possesses of the wildness, the sup- 

 pleness, and the charm of cool leafy places in 

 its tall, polished wand, its fluttering whorls, and 

 the pure whiteness of its rhizome. It always 

 looks self-possessed, bending but never breaking 

 before the rain and storm. Then its life and fire 

 when rising from the foil of light-green Onocleas. 

 I find it growing in low woods where water has 

 lodged in spring, lifting its lithe stem along 

 shaded ditches and hedges, and rising in flexile 



