November, 190 5 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



175 



262. A rare lily. Broad, heart-shaped leaves 

 (L. cordi folium) . It is impossible to grow, and less 

 desirable than the giant Himalayan lily (L. gigAnteum) 



rolled back so far that the tips almost touch 

 the back of the flower. 



I. Funnel-Shaped Lilies 



THE BEST WHITE LILIES 



The only funnel-shaped lily of the first 

 degree of popularity is the Easter lily (Lilium 

 longiflorum). This has the longest flower of 

 any hardy lily — often six inches, sometimes 

 seven inches long. Although commonly 

 called "Bermuda lily," it is native to Japan. 

 It is important to distinguish between the 

 Bermuda-grown and the Japanese bulbs; the 

 former (known to the trade as L. Harrisii) 

 are high priced, and are now largely used for 

 Christmas forcing; the Japan bulbs (known 

 as longiflorums) are cheaper for Easter 

 forcing, and it is possible to force them for 

 Christmas by holding the best bulbs for a 

 year in cold storage. How Bermudan greed 

 has killed the goose that laid the golden egg, 

 and how the United States Department of 

 Agriculture has discovered a method of grow- 

 ing healthy bulbs from seed in a far shorter 

 time than could have been believed, is ex- 

 plained in Country Life in America for April, 

 1904, page 508. 



OTHER FUNNEL-SHAPED LILIES 



There are two other funnel-shaped lilies 

 in cultivation, but they have shorter and 

 wider tubes than the Easter lily, and only one 

 of them has a pure white form. 



There is no popular name for Liliiim 

 Japonicum. It might be called the "Japan- 

 ese pink lily" or "Kramer's lily," because the 

 commonest form of it in cultivation is the one 

 known to the dealers as Liliiim Krameri, 

 though the correct name is Lilium Japonicum, 

 var. rosenm. This flower varies from a blush 

 to deep reddish pink, and the richest color is 

 said to be brought out by growing it on peaty 

 soil. The bulbs cost about twenty-five cents 



each, and the Japanese plant them on the 

 side so that they will shed the fall rains, for 

 if water enters the bulbs they are likely to 

 decay. Kramer's lily is white inside (as are 

 all the funnel-shaped lilies) and there is a var. 

 leucanthemum which is white outside also, 

 but it is doubtful if it can ever compete 

 with the Easter lily. Kramer's lily nor- 

 mally has one flower on a stalk, sometimes 

 two or three, and the record seems to be 

 seven. 



Brown's lily has the distinction of being 

 colored wine-purple or chocolate-brown out- 

 side. This alone would hardly induce one 

 to buy many bulbs at fifty cents each, but the 

 flower is said to become seven or eight inches 

 long. Lilium Brownii is often considered a 

 variety of L. Japonicum, but it is more robust, 

 and has a leafier stalk, bearing three or four 

 large flowers, instead of one. It blooms in 

 July and, unlike most lilies, is said to prefer 

 a light, sandy soil. Try it in a warm, shel- 

 tered position and plant the bulb sideways, 

 or be sure that there is a free drainage. 



THE TALLEST LILIES 



Much rarer than the three species named 

 above are two other funnel-shaped lilies that 

 are interesting because they have large, broad, 

 heart-shaped leaves (lily leaves are ordinarily 

 long and narrow — lanceolate or linear). One 

 of these,/-, cordijolium, is shown in Fig. 262. 

 It has a white flower, with large violet-brown 

 patches on the lower half of the outer seg- 

 ments. But this Japanese species is not as 

 desirable as the giant Himalayan lily (L. gi- 

 ganteum) which bears twice as many flowers 

 (twelve to twenty) and is the tallest of the 

 true lilies, attaining a height of six to ten feet. 

 The flower is white, tinged purple inside and 

 green outside. It would be a notable achieve- 

 ment for some American amateur to grow 

 this lily, and I will gladly pay $5 for a good 

 photograph of it with a record of successful 

 cultivation. 



II. Turk's-cap Lilies and the Like 



The botanists make a big distinction be- 

 tween lilies that roll their segments clear back 

 and those which roll back only half way, but 

 there are so many intermediate forms to 

 puzzle one that I shall take a short cut out of 

 confusion by lumping them all in one group, 

 and showing by a "key" how each kind 

 clearly differs from the others. 



THE MOST GORGEOUS LILY 



The golden-banded lily (L. auratum) is by 

 common consent the most gorgeous of lilies, 

 and is a prime favorite in spite of the fact that 

 the bulbs have to be renewed every two or 

 three years. Some philanthropist ought to 

 offer a reward of $1,000 to anyone who can 

 show how to make them live for ten years in a 

 garden or multiply forever. This is a white 

 lily with purplish spots and of extreme 

 breadth (eight inches to a foot), but the regal 

 glory of it is the broad golden band on each 

 petal which distinguishes it from everv other 

 lily. 



No other lily varies so much in size, color 

 and season. A hundred bulbs of it will give 

 flowers through a longer period than an equal 

 number of any other lily. It bears anywhere 

 from eight to thirty flowers, and there are 

 a good many cases of fifty to a hundred, but 

 these are freaks, for this species is peculiarly 

 liable to "fascialion," i.e., the growing to- 

 gether of several flower stalks as dandelions 

 sometimes do. The average number — say 

 twenty — is far prettier. 



You can have a red band instead of a yellow 

 if you care to pay sixty cents for it, and there 

 are at least ten varieties, varying in price from 

 twenty cents to a dollar. 



The English experience is different from 

 ours, for Miss Jekyll, in her charming book 

 on lilies, says that auratums are generally at 

 their best the third year. 



If you can live without a golden band on 



£63. The bell-shaped type. Lilium rubellum, related to Kramer's lily, but the tube is hardly long enough to 

 maKe it a funnel-shaped (lower. A delicate pinK flower. A more permanent species than Kramer's 



