From “Easter Lilies” in Lilies: Beautiful Varieties for Home and Garden by Naomi Slade:
“Native to a slender slice of East Asia, stretching from Japan to the Philippines, Lilium longiflorum is charming, fragrant and decorative. What’s more, it punches way above its weight on the floral world stage due to its adoption as the ‘Easter’ lily, a symbol of hope, purity and resurrection in the Christian faith….
“The large flowers are delightful, with perhaps half a dozen carried atop a stem clad in glossy, dark green leaves. Each long, white trumpet is palest green at the base, fading to white, while the central stigma, stamens and anthers are a faded, buttery hue.
“Left to its own devices, L. longiflorum and its cultivars would bloom in summer — usually between June and August in much of the northern hemisphere. But to perform at its best at Easter, the bulbs are forced. This is done by keeping the potted bulbs in cool temperatures – they need a period of chill in order to flower — and once they are in growth, the amount of light and warmth they receive is moderated to control bloom time….
“When potted Easter lilies have finished flowering, you can plant them out into the garden. Acclimatize the plants gradually before removing the pot, loosening the roots and settling them into the soil. The stem-rooting bulbs may take a couple of years to recover, but should flower at the normal time when they are ready.”
From “It Took Me a Moment to See” by Michael Moss in Minnesota Writes: Poetry, edited by Jim Moore and Cary Waterman:
North on Minnesota 59,
hungry for the company of strangers,
I drive past the barren golf course,
the airport deserted at dusk,
the abandoned missile silos,
Oak Lake and Lower Badger Creek
to the Third Base Supper Club;
concrete deer grazing the dead lawn,
pink Styrofoam flamingoes
framing the Mediterranean door…
On the juke box Johnny Cash sings I’m a Hero,
then Jerry Lee Lewis rocks Great Balls of Fire.
Two migrant workers, a man and a woman,
get drunk on Gallo, forget their food,
their shack, the sound of their truck,
forget their children’s voices,
the reason they crossed the border.
Wheat farmers in starched white shirts
break bread with their huge hands.
A late Easter lily blooms on the bar….
Hello!
I came across a single white lily flower at Oakland Cemetery’s Gardens in early June, the blossom sitting all by itself at the top of a very long stem, much of it hidden from view until I walked around the headstones. There were no other flowers right nearby, so it commanded attention — and got me wondering if I could find others hiding out all by themselves around the property. This post — and the next one — feature variations of Lilium longiflorum that I found in odd places, all with a single flower or small cluster of flowers that had stems so long they appeared to be hanging from trees or emerging from shrubs nearby. In one of the photos, I got photobombed by a lily sneaking a peak; if you find that one and enlarge it, you might think the lily is smiling at you.
I’ve often been hesitant to call these “Easter Lilies” — their common name — because it seemed to me that “Easter Lily” ought to refer to a flower that bloomed much earlier in the season… you know, around Easter. So I was glad to learn about the blooming difference between those we see in early spring — typically in pots or vases — and those we see in gardens later during the summer, as described in the quotation at the top of this post. I guess the right approach would be to call them Easter Lilies when we see them around Easter, but use their full name Lilium longiflorum when we see them during the summer. Maybe we could call the summer versions “Lily Longlegs” since their stems are so long, or follow the origins of their scientific name (where longi means “long” and florum means “flower”) and dub them “Lily Longflower” instead!
(P.S. It’s possible that some of these are Madonna Lilies (Lilium candidum) rather than Lilium longiflorum, but it’s hard to differentiate between the two given the angles of some of my shots.)
Thanks for taking a look!
They are tall and so striking. Really liked the poem “It took Me a Moment to See.”
The height of some of them surprised me; they must have some really strong stems to grow that high and still support flowers (without tipping over, as many lilies do). I liked the poem too; the words were visually striking. I included only half of it; if you’d like to read the rest, click the link to the book above and search for “It Took Me a Moment to See” — you should be able to read the whole thing even without an Internet Archive account.