JUNE 143 



XXVI 



Of all the plants grown in British borders there is 

 none, to my mind at least, so fascinating as 

 lilies, and there is none in which so much 

 disappointment awaits the amateur — no genus whereon 

 so much money has been squandered in vain. The 

 fact is that it is only under protest that lilies, with 

 the exception of very few species, consent to display 

 their full charms in our patchwork climate. Most of 

 them demand to be kept reasonably dry during their 

 winter sleep and to breathe in summer an atmosphere 

 -clarified by powerful and prolonged sunshine. Such 

 conditions are not in the programme of our sea-girt 

 lowlands. Those lilies which do flourish, more or less, 

 with us lire in chronic conflict with the asperities of 

 British climate. And, as if that were not enough to 

 ensure for them considerate treatment at our hands, 

 the bulbs imported from distant lands, as are the great 

 majority of those offered in nurserymen's catalogues, 

 arrive in such a state of impaired vitality as to render 

 them least able to resist disease or decay. The rootlets, 

 slender in some species, thick and fleshy in others, 

 either have been deliberately shorn off by the packers 

 (as is invariably done to bulbs exported from Japan), 

 or have dried up and become functionless in transit. 

 Bulbs purchased in this enfeebled condition are often 

 planted in open borders where they are expected to 

 survive the drenching of a British winter, or they are 

 bought at the spring sales and potted up or planted 

 out for summer display. Such treatment of dormant 



