From “The Journey of the True Lily” in Lily (Botanical) by Marcia Reiss:
“Hybridization has produced an astonishing variety of lilies in nearly every colour, shape and size. More than 15,000 have been listed on the International Lily Register and just as many unregistered hybrids are believed to exist….
“Beginning in 1963, two standard-bearers of the lily world, the Royal Horticultural Society and the North American Lily Society, established an internationally accepted system of nine different divisions. Like the hybrids, the number of divisions kept increasing, but the eighth conveniently includes those not accounted for in any of the others…. The divisions are based on the species used to create the hybrids, distinctions that can be confusing to the average gardener. There are separate divisions, for example, called Asiatic and Oriental — a division that appears to be redundant….
“Asiatics, largely the hybrids produced at the Oregon Bulb Farms and their descendants, are beautiful, virtually pest-free and amazingly hardy. Their only drawback is that, for the most part, they are also fragrance-free. Orientals, mainly derived from the two Japanese stars of the nineteenth century, L. auratum and L. speciosum, are very fragrant and flamboyant in size and colour. These two species had been crossed as early as 1869 by Francis Parkman….
“One of the most successful Oriental hybrids, the colourful and fragrant ‘Stargazer’, was finally created a century after Parkman’s milestone. A cross between L. henryi and L. speciosum rubrum, it is a show-stopping beauty with crimson petals edged in white and sprinkled with dark red spots.”
From “The Lily Plant” in Lilies for American Gardens by George L. Slate:
“The flowers of lilies are diverse in form and color and it is this diversity which contributes to the charm of the genus. On this diversity of form and the position of the flower is based the classification of lilies.
“The parts of the flowers are in sixes. The outer part consists of three petals and three sepals which together are called segments and make up the perianth. Within are six stamens or the male part of the flower. These are composed of slender filaments at the top of which are the anthers or pollen-bearing organs. The pollen varies in color with the different species from yellow to dark brown and is of some taxonomic value. In the center of the flower is the pistil, or female part of the flower. At the base of each segment is a narrow groove, the nectariferous furrow which secretes nectar….”
Hello!
This is the first of three posts with photographs of Lilium speciosum — an Oriental lily whose common names include Japanese Lily and Japanese Show (or Showy) Lily. It does live up to its “showy” moniker: the plant blooms profusely over several weeks, often with a dozen flowers per plant, each flower showing rich and reflective shades of red, purple, or magenta colors that vary depending on the lighting provided by the sun or the way light bounces off their surroundings.
As you progress through the photos below (and those in the next two posts), you’ll see the effects of those varying lighting conditions: note how the petals of those photographed when the sun was out are redder than those taken in the shade, those taken in the shade shift more towards purple, and those with gray stone backgrounds shift from warmer red or purple tones to shades of magenta. Unlike the Tiger Lilies (Lilium lancifolium) that I presented in previous posts (see Capturing the Elusive Tiger Lily (1 of 2) and Capturing the Elusive Tiger Lily (2 of 2)) — which demonstrate a consistent, saturated orange color largely unaffected by lighting variations — the more translucent petals of Lilium speciosum may look completely different as conditions (or your standing positions when photographing them) change.
I identified this flower by uploading about 20 of my photos to PlantNet, which reported a 60- to 80-percent likelihood that Lilium speciosum was the correct species. Those are actually very high percentages; most flowers I identify that way are not nearly as recognizable, and I’ll use additional sources to try and get them right. Even so, though, the quotation at the top of this post suggests how complicated the genetics of any one lily plant can be, and this Lilium speciosum — one of the most important lily variants, whose botanical history we’ll explore in the next post — shows evidence of potentially having the spots, colors, and petal shapes of many of its predecessors, in its own distinct package.
I initially discovered these plants producing flower buds on June 21, where they surround the base of one of Oakland Cemetery’s prestigious monuments, which we’ll take a closer look at in the third post in this series. I took only three photographs that day, capturing the plant in its budding stage, where one of its distinguishing characteristics — the large number of blooms it can potentially produce — is evident.
Three weeks later, we see how that potential plays out in these photos showing one of the plants with four flowers in full bloom (Lilium Flowers describes how the blooms unfold), along with six styles that have previously shed their flower petals. So this plant was capable of producing ten flowers from a single stem emanating from the ground, each flower balanced on branching “tributaries” (just as the buds were) and positioned to offer pollinators opportunities to approach from varying directions. The flowers also demonstrate the typical staggered blooming strategy of many lily plants, a strategy that extends the plants’ accessibility to those pollinators from several days to several weeks.
Its extended blooming period gave me a chance to observe this Oriental lily in more than one stage of its lifecycle, even though I took most of the photographs on a single day. Below, in this image, we get a closer look at what happens after the flowers have finished blooming, where the styles to the left and right of the stem curve upward as a reminder of the original positioning of the flowers. We can’t tell from looking at this photo if pollination actually occurred; but if it had, then the stigma at the end of these styles would have been brushed with pollen by some fly-by bugs or the wind, beginning the next reproductive stage where the flower’s seeds get fertilized in the seedpod closer to the stem. We often see styles like this in our gardens; the fact that we may visually tune them out (or, as I have often done in the past, remove them from photos) suggests that we may not realize their significance, but I think we should — especially when they’re as artistically placed as they are in this photo.
This Japanese Show Lily shares the same Turk’s Cap form with Tiger Lilies, yet also demonstrates important differences. The two plants appear to take divergent approaches to managing their reproductive energies, with the Tiger Lily emphasizing large, heavy blooms to attract bigger pollinators, fewer flowers per plant, and a backup method of cloning itself with bulbils. The Show Lily doesn’t generate bulbils, but instead produces many more blooms on each plant, any one of which is smaller than that of a typical Tiger Lily. This larger quantity of blooms also introduces architectural differences between the two plants, with the Show Lily building an array of stems constructed like a scaffold to help distribute mechanical stress and send nutrients to the flowers and leaves.
The Show Lily’s flowers are also not only smaller than the Tiger’s, but — as you can see from most of the photos — their recurve is not as tight as that of the Tiger Lily. This keeps the interior of the flower — where nectar resides — open to many small pollinators, like the wasp you can see approaching a flower’s anterior in the first three photos below. The wasp would likely have been attracted to the flower’s varying colors, including the bright green ribbing — which not only supports the flower’s curved petal structure (as I explained in this Tiger Lily post), but also distributes nutrients to the flower petals. With the more open form of the curved petals, the wasp can easily alight between the petals, and its movements might generate enough vibration to facilitate pollen transfer from the anthers — which are much closer to each other and to the stigma than the Tiger Lily’s — even if it doesn’t fly near them, with bonus pollen awarded to the flower if it does.
Thanks for reading and taking a look!
