Liliums 2013

A bit early for liliums here! Nice to see yours Fermi while awaiting summer!

I saw this on Facebook, a new yellow-flowered Nomocharis species, N. gongshanensis, published recently in 2012, considered to represent the link between Nomocharis and Lilium. Here's a PDF that describes the new species, scroll to near the end to see several photos.
http://plant-biogeography.webs.com/Gao%20et%20al%202012%20Lilium-Nomocha...

Martagons are in full swing here, and all of mine are (or had been) blooming, except one odd seedling.  I have pretty much blasé genetics for my Lilium martagon seedlings, nevertheless, each one is different.

These are all first blooms this year:

Some older named martagons and  hybrids:

Lilium martagon 'Amelita' and Lilium martagon 'Claude Shride'

Hybrids with Lilium tsingtauense:  Lilium 'Super Tsing' and Lilium 'Brotsing'.

Hybrids with Lilium hansonii:  Lilium 'Terrace City' and Lilium 'Mrs. R.O. Backhouse'

Yes, I am fortunate that there are no Lily beetles here.... yet.

I had a little bit of a scare a few weeks ago when I saw these suspicious eggs on

a martagon lily bud:

I cut the bud off and hatched the eggs in a closed jar.  They turned out to be a kind of Assasin bug., so l put them back in the garden. 

It's nice to know that I have yet another predator species thriving in my yard.

With martagon lilies being so early, one would think that the species in the martagon section of the genus would all be early, too.  Not so.  Fist comes Lilium martagon, then Lilium tsingtauense and the natural hybrid imposter (explanation to follow), then Lilium distichum.  Distichum is just blooming now for me.  Not sure where L. medeoloides (the other martagon section species) fits in.  I don't have it yet (but I have just obtained seeds!).

Most often in the trade, what is sold as Lilium tsingtauense is really an imposter - a natural hybrid of Lilium tsingtauense with L. medeoloides or L. distichum.  L. tsingtauense has completely upright flowers.  The imposter is usually more outfacing, but may seem upright, especially if there is only a single bloom, but there will always be a telltale crook in the pedicel at the base of the flower, that the true L. tsingtauense will not have.  This distinction has been documented by Dr. Ki-Byung Lim from Korea, who has done extensive field work with Ll. tsingtauense, miquelianum(the imposter), distichum and hansonii. 

I have several supposed acquisitions of L. tsingtauense by bulb and by seed, and so far none have turned out to be the true species.  So these are pics of the L. miquelianum form.  Flowers do not all have the same look, due to a combination of flower aspect and tepal rotation.

You can see here in the second pic how one might be fooled with an "upright" floret:

Then comes Lilium distichum.  It's bud arrangement reminds me of a helicopter or that swing carousel ride at the amusement park.

Edited to add one more photo.

Very nice lilies, Claire.  Though the yellow form of L. canadense is supposedly more common in the wild than orange or red, one hardly sees it in the gardens. 

I struggle with L. canadense, being dry here and with higher pH soil than one would like.  But seedling grown stock always seems to do better than "imported" bulbs.

Lillium duchartrei

Lilium michiganense

Lilium majoense

Lilium michiganense.  These from seed from northern Minnesota.

First blooms from wild collected seed of Lilium canadense in Kentucky.

This one had a bud last season, but I cut it off since I thought the plant was stressed.  Boy, was I wrong!  Look at the bud count now....

I have two Chen Yi forms of Lilium papilliferum, also.  For years I grew them in a fairly dry clay base soil and full sun.  I didn't have a better place for them back then.  The plants stayed small and under a foot high, but the flowers always recurved normally, at least as one might expect.  These are pics from back then (2006):

Since I have rescued them from that terrible habitat, they grow very differently (and more robust).  I think one form had perished, as I have not rebloomed two forms since the move.  They now look so different that I am not even positive which form is blooming!  Even in their new home, which is completely non-native soil (one part sand, two parts compost), blooms vary from year to year.  Here see  the exact same plant, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

I have not investigated the mode, but I too experience a modest running underground, and more stems appearing at 4-6 inch intervals than before.  But I wonder if the different recurving of the petals versus sepals that some experience is merely due to environmental factors, rather than a species characteristic.

I can't resist just a couple more pics of Lilium canadense.  I am so enamored by them.  From bulbs I have failed, but from seed they do better.

Some open pollinated seedlings of Lilium 'Super Tsing'.  Nothing spectacular...

And then there is this one.  Way more vigorous than the others, but tepals are very thick and often with not so well formed flowers.

It also has the unusual trait (in fact I've never heard of it before) of having well developed "leaves" throughout the inflorescence, as well as 5-7 well developed leaves above the single whorl.

The plant was 4 feet tall last season, and it had spontaneously split to two bulbs.  One growing five feet high this season.  The other is also pictured above.

And results of some other crosses of mine here:

http://allthingsplants.com/thread/view/18516/2013-Pics-of-Crosses-by-Leftwood

This is only a hobby, and if you have seen what some other amateur breeders are doing, you'd know that there is nothing ground shaking in my progeny.  So far, I have not been hybridizing for anything in particular (what a true breeder does), just having fun and seeing what comes up out of a little pollen here and a little pollen there.  Yes,  more F2s are in the future.

I only live on a .4 acre (.16 ha.) lot,and grow my hybrid seedling lilies on 150-200 square feet.  It's pretty crammed, and certainly not ideal.  Having more land is probably my greatest wish.   Hybrid seedlings are quite vigorous. For asiatics, most the the time it takes 2 or three seasons to flower.

Being the inquisitive man that I am, I have always kept seed from different pods separate, even when they are the same cross done on the same plant.  Keeping good records takes an enormous effort.  Preliminary result do seem to show group differences from pod to pod.  Not sure why.  I mentioned this to another amateur hybridizer, with similar results.  He says he has some theories, but hasn't elaborated yet.

A beautiful specimen, Tony.

  Have you noticed, personally or across the web, different forms of the species?  For instance,  is there a difference in Chinese forms versus Vietnamese?

Are yours from different sources?