LILIUM CANADENSE. 
AMERICAN YELLOW LILY. 
NATURAL ORDER, LILIACEA. 
Litium CANADENSE, Linneeus.—Leaves three-veined, mostly verticillate, lanceolate, the veins 
hairy beneath; peduncles terminal, elongated, usually by threes; flowers nodding, the 
segments spreading, never revolute. Buib scaly. Stem round, two to four feet high, 
surrounded by several remote whorls, each consisting of four to six leaves, and often a few 
scattered ones at the base. These are two to three inches long by the half to one inch 
wide. Flowers one to three, sometimes seven to twenty, pendulous, yellow, or orange- 
colored, spotted with dark purple inside. (Wood’s Class-Book of Botany. See also 
Gray’s Botany of the Northern United States, and Chapman’s Flora of the Southern 
Tnited States.) 
gO NCEELLOW. in his beautiful poem of “Flowers,” 
_ 1 oO 
=a] sings of 
“ Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, 
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day.” 
He may have had a sunflower in his mind, or it may have been 
many another flower; but there are few things “in the sunlight 
shining,” and flaunting their “blossoms in the eye of day” more 
gorgeously than the various species of our native lilies. Indeed 
the Lily is ever beautiful, is famed for its loveliness in all parts 
of the world, and has been celebrated in song and story in all 
ages. Its very name is contemporaneous with history, having 
been used by Homer; and its literal meaning is “the most 
charming of all flowers.” The ancients imagined that the red 
Lily was the first to be created, and modern authors believe that 
the martagon Lily is the species they referred to. The Latin 
writers speak of it as “Lilium intortum;” and as the martagon 
turns its petals very much back upon itself, it seems to agree 
so far with their description. As is the case with most of the 
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