LILIES. 
55 
The magnificent aratum, or gold-banded lily, has im¬ 
mense flowers of pure white, with a broad gold-colored 
stripe through the center of each petal. This is decidedly 
the queen of the Japan lilies, it is more delicate than the 
other varieties, and also more expensive. It is more fre¬ 
quently cultivated in pots than in the open ground, and 
makes a very ornamental greenhouse plant. From ten to 
twenty golden-tinged blossoms are often seen on one stalk, 
and they send forth a peculiar spicy fragrance. 
The bulbs should be first put in a six-inch pot, filled 
with a mixture of rich loam and fine sand renewed each 
season. As it commences a new growth, repot into a pot 
two inches larger than the one in which it was grown. 
With this treatment, bulbs but three years potted have sent 
up six stems, and produced more than one hundred and 
fifty flowers in a single season. 
Rubrum , which has large rose-colored flowers, spotted 
with dark crimson, is another beautiful variety, and Lon - 
gijlorum has long, trumpet-shaped flowers of pure white. 
Album is also pure white, and very lovely. Tigrinum is a 
very showy species, orange spotted with black, and bears a 
great quantity of blossoms for a longer period than any of 
the other kinds. 
These lilies all thrive best in a rich, dry soil—a mixture 
of peat, sandy loam, and well-rotted manure, and the bulbs 
should be planted from four to six inches deep. They like 
almost any situation but a damp one ; and “nearly all the 
failures in lily culture are due to the fact of their being 
placed in too wet ground. Use portulacca or any low- 
growing annuals to shade the ground. This will not only 
give two crops of flowers in the season, but will make the 
lily bulbs much stronger for the next year’s flowering. ” 
The white day-lily, which folds up like a small umbrella 
at sunset, is of a peculiarly snowy whiteness, with a rich, 
sweet odor. The buds are very beautiful, and the jolant, 
