SEPTEMBER.. 



129 



LILIUM AURATUM. 



WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 



We are indebted to Messrs. Veitch & Son, of the Chelsea and Exeter 

 Nurseries, for the opportunity of placing in the hands of our friends and 

 patrons the accompanying figure, by Fitch, of the most remarkable novelty 

 amongst plants which has been seen in our gardens during the present year. 

 Liliom atjrattjm, which is the name borne by the plant we are alluding to, 

 is decidedly pre-eminent amongst the introductions of 1862; and to Messrs. 

 Veitch & Son belong the honour of having been the first to flower it, and to 

 introduce it to the notice of plant-lovers. Our figure was taken in the Chelsea 

 Nursery in the month of July last, shortly after the plant had won at South 

 Kensington the highest reward offered for novelties, and had created a sensa- 

 tion amongst the gay crowd which assembled there on the occasion of the 

 July horticultural fete. 



This Gold-banded Lily was introduced to England by Mr. John Gould 

 Veitch from Japan. It was found growing wild on the hill sides in the midland 

 provinces of that country ; and Mr. Veitch states that there can be little, if 

 any, doubt as to its hardiness in this country, as he has known from 14° to 

 16° of frost to occur in the localities in which it is found. There the flowering 

 season is July and August, or, according to Mr. Fortune, the hottest months 

 of the year, from the end of June to the beginning of August. Here Mr. 

 Veitch's plants have continued to bloom in succession from the commencement of 

 July ; and we believe that in others, in the hands of Mr. Standish, the blossoms 

 are only just now appearing. 



Of the plant itself we hardly know how to write in terms sufficiently 

 laudatory. Even in what, according to some accounts of it, we must regard as 

 a puny condition of growth, a couple of feet high with a single flower — even in 

 this condition it is grand ; nay, more, it is glorious. What, then, will it be 

 when it reaches what Mr. Fortune tells us is its usual stature — 4 feet, and 

 produces " three, four, and five of its large blossoms on the top of its stem ?" 

 It will then be grandly glorious, and L. speciosum, the finest Lily we had 

 previously known, must hide its face eclipsed. 



What the blossom is our plate will show, o as well as its area will permit. 

 The plant itself is a comparatively slender grower, with a smooth stem clothed 

 with narrow lance-shaped leaves, which are acute at the base. At the top of 

 the stem comes the flower, or flowers— one in the plants we have seen in bloom 

 with Mr. Veitch, two in others of what is reputedly the same species growing 

 with Mr. Standish, and from three to five in a state of nature according to Mr. 

 Fortune's evidence.^ _ In the plant shown at Kensington the flower stood erect, 

 but the natural position seems to be nearly horizontal, or sub-declinate as it is 

 technically termed. The broad somewhat wavy segments of the perianth recurve 

 so as to give the outline of a broad shallow vase ; and with their parts thus 

 recurved the blossoms measure between 8 and 10 inches across. The colour is 

 white, with a broad stripe or band of light golden yellow down the centre of 

 each segment, the surface being also studded over with wart-like reddish- 

 purple spots, and recurved truncated spine-like projections, and the base being 

 villose within. To all these features of beauty this new Japan Lily adds a 

 charming sweetness, the flowers having a deliciously aromatic odour, something 

 like the perfume of Orange blossoms. 



This Lily needs no recommendation of ours to win its way into every garden. 

 Its blossoms, of which Mr. Fitch has made a truthful copy, are in their silent 

 beauty more eloquent than words. 



vol. i. Tf 



