June 11, 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
485 
public, but even now it is by no means plentiful in gardens, and it is 
strange that such an ornamental shrub should be so much neglected. 
THE STEM ROOTS OF LILIUM AURATUM. 
Your correspondent, “ Theta,” agrees with my observation that soft 
flabby bulbs of this Lilium, if allowed to flower, seldom survive. I 
pointed out that the majority of such bulbs produced their stems and 
flowers only by the aid they received from the stem roots. The bulbs, 
after they have once flowered, decay simply becau«e no roots have been 
formed at the base. If plump bulbs are retarded for flowering during 
observed wrongly my experience points to the fact that surface roots are 
the outcome of defective root-activity at the base. “ Thinker ” is evidently 
of the same opinion. It appears to me that the correspondents that have 
writ'en upon this subject would rather encourage these surface roots to 
perfect the flowers for one season, and then convey the whole to the 
rubbish heap, in preference to sacrificing the flowers for one season and 
trying to develrpe the bulbs for future use. My contention is that when 
surface roots are encouraged the plants perfect but one lot of flowers in 
most instances, the bulbs being decayed below at the end of the season ; 
but if they were discouraged would it not induce the formation of roots 
below ? This might be the means of saving many bulbs that are annually 
Fig. 118 .—Etjrybia Gunni. 
November and December under glass the stems and flowers are not 
supported by means of basal roots, but in most instances entirely by the 
roots from the stem. Flowering this Lilium during December can be 
accomplished, but to do so means the sacrifice of the whole of the bulbs, 
for it is impossible to keep them in good condition for the following year. 
Experience such as this is the ground upon which my assertion is 
based that hundreds of L. auratum would fail to lengthen their stems and 
develope their flowers without the aid of surface roots. 
Sound healthy bulbs when established have abundance of roots at the 
base, and stem roots do not form however large the stem or the number 
of flowers it may produce. I daresay the strong stem mentioned by 
“ Theta ” that bore sixty-five floweis had no stem roots unless some 
accident had befallen the roots at the base. If these surface roots are 
natural, why are they not produced on all alike 1 Without I have 
lost. Without roots at the base 
the bulb for the future is useles 1 , 
and this is the mam reason why 
I advocated an endeavour to in¬ 
duce roots from the base instead 
of from the top of the bulbs. How 
can this be done without the re¬ 
moval of the flowering poition of 
the stem and the destroyal of the 
stem roots as they appear ? At 
any ra'e, this will either compel 
roots to form at the base, or the 
plants will collapse a few months 
earlier, but there is the probability 
of saving them. 
“Theta” is wrong about stem- 
roots when the bulbs are potted 
near the surface, for those so 
potted produce them first, fre¬ 
quently through the moisture of 
the atmosphere in which they may 
be grown. The roots, although 
at first upon the surface, soon enter the soil, and I have known them 
fill the pots with roots afterwards, and entirely support the stem 
and flowers. For some years I grew a batch annually for flowering 
during the months indicated, always potting them near the surface, 
and the pots were filled with active roots, but very rarely were any 
found from the base of the bulbs. I am of opinion that when healthy 
bulbs afie potted low or planted at a fair depth, as “Theta ” recommends, 
they are less liable to form roots on the s’.ern than when planted near 
the surface, 
“ Theta ” fails to tell us whether this Lilium produces stem roots in 
its native home. I am inclined to think it does not unless the basil roots 
become inactive from some cause. I readily grant that the summers in 
Japan are hotter than in England, but this does not prove that L. 
auratum is not liable to “ sunstroke’’ or that the plants grow there fully 
