XLVIII 
THE EASTER LILY’S DESERT COUSIN 
I SN'T IT ODD that the lily, 
which one is likely to think 
of as having its natural home 
in damp places, and which 
gives the impression of being 
a marsh child, grows out on 
the open deserts of the South¬ 
west, where every plant that 
lives must carry on a constant warfare against death from 
lack of water! 
It is in these open spaces that the yucca grows and at 
blossom time gives to these barren solitudes such a cluster 
of flowers as are produced by no other member of the 
lily family under the sun. Strangely, another yucca, 
much like this Westerner, finds itself a home on the At¬ 
lantic seaboard. 
There are many sorts of lilies in the world, ranging 
from the Madonna lily of the Easter season to the tiny 
lily-of-the-valley, from the deep yellow Turk’s cap that 
borders the roadways from New York to Boston to the 
leopard lily of California’s valleys, from the yellow trout 
lily by the brookside to the snow white Solomon’s seal 
that hangs its bells of purity all along its stem. 
But the queen of them all is the bloom of the yucca. 
It is shown to be a lily by the nature of its pointed leaves 
and by the construction of its six-petaled flowers. The 
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