"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 

Tag: lilies

Easter, Madonna, and Regal Lilies (1 of 3)

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From “Easter Lilies” in Lilies: Beautiful Varieties for Home and Garden by Naomi Slade:

“When Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg discovered Lilium longiflorum in 1777 in southern Japan, he could never have known that it was destined for glory. Biding its time, the flower headed west to Europe before hitching a ride to Bermuda, where it changed its name, winning hearts and minds and being grown in huge numbers as the Bermuda Lily, until the crop was struck with a virus and production reverted to Japan….

“The bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 put an abrupt end to trade between Japan and America, and the price of Easter lilies rocketed. But, serendipitously, a new supply of the nation’s favourite flower presented itself.

“When soldier Louis Houghton returned from the First World War he had brought with him a suitcase of L. longiflorum bulbs for his gardening friends in Oregon. These amateur lily growers suddenly found themselves with a profitable enterprise: lilies were dubbed ‘White Gold’, and business boomed. By 1945 there were an estimated 1,200 lily growers in the region and it remains a centre of large-scale production.”

From “Lilium” in Flowers and Their Histories by Alice M. Coats:

“The Madonna lily has a strong claim to be considered both the oldest domesticated flower, and the loveliest. It was in existence 3000 years B.C., and is represented on Cretan vases and other objects of the middle Minoan period, between 1750 and 1600 B.C.; it was known to the Assyrians and to other eastern Mediterranean civilizations, and was probably carried westward by the Phoenicians….

“Its native country is not certainly known, but is thought to be in the Balkans; a theory which is supported by the discovery near Salonika of a hardier, disease-resisting variety, which unlike most Madonna lilies produces abundance of fertile seed. If this theory is correct, it is possible that this flower is a survivor from before the Quaternary Ice Age, which destroyed the plant life of most of the rest of Europe.”

From “Lilium Regale” in Some Flowers by Vita Sackville-West:

“The debt that we stay-at-home gardeners in comfortable England owe to brave botanists who risk their lives in dangerous territories can scarcely be over-estimated…. We forget the adventures, the dangers, the hardships, which men have willingly experienced in order to enrich us casual purchasers of their spoils. We forget the preparations for expeditions, the struggle to engage native porters, mules, packs, and what not, the long trek over difficult tracks, the alarming nights and days, the frequent poises between life and death, the unique and thrilling moment when after all this cost of courage and endurance, the reward is suddenly found in a flower hitherto unknown to European eyes….

“We now, in 1937, accept Lilium Regale, the regal lily, as a commonplace of our English gardens, forgetting that only so recently as 1905 was she discovered in Western China by Dr. Ernest Wilson. The bulbs were scarce and remained expensive for several years, but owing to the ease with which the regal lily may be grown from seed, only two or three years being needed to produce a flowering bulb, the nurserymen’s prices rapidly came down and the bulbs may now be obtained for a few pence.”

Hello!

Above we have three quotes from three different books — each a tidbit about the history of three different kinds of lilies, whose images appear in the galleries below. These snippets from botany’s past always entertain me, and it was really only until I started searching for quotes to accompany my flower photos a couple of years ago that I began to realize how botanical history and the history of humanity were so entwined. The “big histories” we study formally tend to focus more on human events with, perhaps, only passing reference to natural history; but there is certainly something to be said for merging the study of human events — with plants!

The lilies in the photographs — which I took at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens toward the end of June — are a mixture of…

Lilium longiflorum, instantly recognizable and commonly known as the Easter Lily, with pure white flowers and nearly white or very light yellow throats;

Lilium candidum, often known as the Madonna Lily and similar in appearance to the Easter Lily, but displaying shades of light green on the flower petals, especially on their backsides or on the blossom’s throat; and

Lilium Regale, or Regal Lily, noted for red, pink, or burgundy colors on its tube-shaped, unopened flower buds and for retaining those colors on the backs of its petals.

Unless I got my differentiators wrong, you should now be able to identify which lilies are which in this post (and in the next two).

Thanks for taking a look!

Turk’s Cap (Martagon) Lilies (3 of 3)

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From Seeing Flowers by Teri Dunn Chace and Robert Llewellyn:

“Arguably the world’s most easily recognized and beloved flowers, lilies form a large, sprawling family of around 4000 species. It includes, first and foremost, true lilies, the glorious trumpet-shaped flowers of garden and florist and flower show….

“There are scads of lovely species to delight flower lovers, from the towering Chinese lily, Lilium henryi, spangled all the way to the top with gold-orange flowers, to the more modest, waist high Canada lily, L. canadense, which sports a good show of black-speckled orange to red flowers, candelabra style. You may have seen the evocatively named Turk’s cap ones, which have recurved petals; these originate from L. martagon and have been widely hybridized. The speckles, dots, or lines on some of these flowers function as air-traffic control for pollinators, guiding them toward the pollen in the center.”

Hello!

This is the third of three posts showing Turk’s Cap or Martagon lilies I photographed at Oakland Cemetery’s Gardens earlier this summer. The previous post is Turk’s Cap (Martagon) Lilies (2 of 3). If you would like to read more about these lilies and how I created the photos, see the first post: Turk’s Cap (Martagon) Lilies (1 of 3).

Thanks for taking a look!

Turk’s Cap (Martagon) Lilies (2 of 3)

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From The Language of Flowers by Anne Pratt and Thomas Miller:

“The ancient poets told that the hyacinth received its name from Apollo, who unfortunately killed his friend, the youth Hyacinth, and then turned him into a flower, that he might ever bathe in morning dews, and drink the pure air of heaven. He is said to have imprinted the expression of sorrow in black streaks upon the leaves of the flower. The ancient festivals at Sparta, dedicated to Apollo, and termed Hyacinthus, were held in memory of this event, and were commemorated by two days of mirth and festivity and one of mourning….

“The flowers mentioned by classical writers have been the subjects of many discussions; and as no marks are found either on the flower or leaf of the plant termed in modern language hyacinth, several flowers have been mentioned by different authors as the hyacinth of the poets….

“It is now, however, generally believed… that the ancient hyacinth was that red species of lily now called the Martagon lily, or Turk’s-cap. Virgil describes the flower as of a bright-red colour; and it was said to be marked with the Greek exclamation of grief, AI, AI. The black marks of the Turk’s-cap may, by a little help of the imagination, be considered to bear this inscription.”

Hello!

This is the second of three posts showing Turk’s Cap or Martagon lilies I photographed at Oakland Cemetery’s Gardens earlier this summer. If you would like to read more about these lilies — and how I created two sets of seven photos in the styles below — see the first post in the series: Turk’s Cap (Martagon) Lilies (1 of 3).

Thanks for taking a look!

Turk’s Cap (Martagon) Lilies (1 of 3)

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From “Martagon Lily” in Lilies for English Gardens by Gertrude Jekyll:

“A very old garden flower, and, though not bright of colour, always a favourite; indeed one can scarcely think of an old English garden without the dull purple Martagon Lilies. The same distinctive form, also commonly known as turn-cap and turk’s-cap, runs through the allied Lilies of many countries, for we have it in the scarlet pomponium of northern Italy and the yellow Lily of the Pyrenees, in chalcedonicum of Greece and Asia Minor, in tenuifolium of Siberia, in superbum and Humboldtii of the United States; all these, with several others, belonging to the great Martagon group.”

From “Into the Garden” in Lilies by Naomi Slade:

“[Cultivated] plants move naturally by a process of diffusion, slowly, passed from individual to individual: but when politics gets involved, this can change dramatically. When great nations form alliances or expedience sees colonists, explorers, missionaries or collectors punch their way into new territories, almost anything that returns down the line is liable to be valued as a treasure or, at least, a fashionable novelty worth acquiring.

“In the sixteenth century, diplomatic amity broke out between the Holy Roman Empire of Western Europe, based in Vienna, and the Ottoman Empire centred in Constantinople, where Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq was ambassador between 1554 and 1562. Astonished by the gardens he found, he brought back many unusual bulbs, including Turkish native Lilium chalcedonicum. The petals of this variety curl backwards to create a rounded shape, a little like a turban, and it may be the flower that inspired the common name of ‘Turk’s cap lily’.”

Hello! and welcome back!

I always have to speculate a little when I try to identify specific lilies I find in my photographic wanderings at Oakland Cemetery’s Gardens — but I think I’m correct in referring to the lilies in this post (and the next two) as Turk’s Cap or Martagon lilies. “Turk’s Cap” is often used to describe lilies like these, regardless of the specific varieties, because of the distinct up-curved position of the flower petals that form a shape like a turban. Some folks refer to Tiger Lilies (such as those in my previous posts Small Batches of Tiger Lilies (1 of 2) and Small Batches of Tiger Lilies (2 of 2)) as “Turk’s Cap” — though that may be simply a popularized name-choice rather than one that’s botanically accurate. “Martagon” refers to several lily hybrids, of which the lilies in these photographs appear to have membership.

So anyway… I hope that clears things up… hahaha!

It was a bit of a challenge — and also fun, the kind of fun that required a lot of patience — to present these lilies on black backgrounds. The flower petals were easy, since their colors are richly saturated and my focus was sharp enough; but the filaments (the downward pointing green structures, to which the anthers are attached) were a lot harder because — since they were photographed in bright sunlight — they’re somewhat translucent and hard to distinguish from any green shapes behind them. I was never quite satisfied with the results — I mean, I could only poke at so many pixels before “that’s close enough” got stuck in my head — so I created a separate set of the same photos where each image is slightly blurred and softened, and precision didn’t matter as much.

I don’t think of the last seven photos as better or worse than the first seven: they’re just different, created using other options among the endless choices available in Lightroom and (in this case) the Nik Collection software. I typically use Nik Collection very minimally to whiten whites, add some vignetting, and tick-up colors and contrasts; but for these photos I also tried two other techniques. I took the original seven images and added a filter called “Duplex” that provides most of the soft and diffused effect, and one called “Glamour Glow” that further softens and brightens the image, glamorously.

🙂

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

Stargazer Lilies (Plus Four)

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From Lilies by Naomi Slade:

“Certain lilies need no introduction and pretty, fragrant Star Gazer is a household name….

“The original Star Gazer lily was bred in California in the mid-1970s by Leslie Woodriff, a botanical magician and ‘the father of the Oriental hybrid lily’. Here he worked with species lilies with the aim of creating an upward-facing flower rather than a nodding one until a chance genetic mutation produced Star Gazer — and with this he struck gold.

“The flamboyant open flower is made up of petals that are hot pink, with a white picotee edge, crimson polka dots and a central stripe that slides into lime-green nectary guides at the heart of the flower. The central stamens are very prominent. The scent is powerful, strong and spicy; some love it, but others can find it completely overwhelming.”

From “Green River” by William Cullen Bryant in Three Centuries of American Poetry edited by Allen Mandelbaum and Robert D. Richardson:

I often come to this quiet place,
To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face,
And gaze upon thee in silent dream
For in thy lonely and lovely stream
An image of that calm life appears….

Hello!

The flowers featured in the first eight photos below are some especially vibrant stargazer lilies that I found at Oakland Cemetery’s Gardens in July. There weren’t very many still in bloom — not so much because their bloom time had passed, but because of beatings they’d taken from multi-day torrential rains that are so much more frequent here in the southeast. Those still upright — as is the stargazer way — were in pretty good shape, so I cast them on black to hide the mass of broken stems that filled the backgrounds behind them.

The last four photos — the “plus four” of this post’s title — may be a white variation of the stargazer, but I’m not too sure… so I guess I’ll just call them Plus Four Lilies. Weird that I only ended out with four photos (a few more might have made it easier for me to identify them) but as I took these four shots I got distracted by some nearby tiger lilies dancing for my attention… and then forgot about these white ones. Sorry, Lilies!

🙂

Thanks for taking a look!