This lily must be grown from seed. Fortunately the plant produces seed in abundance, and the seeds germinate freely, often producing a flowering bulb in two years.
In this plant the leaves are extremely thin. The blossoms are about an inch across, of the colour of red sealing-wax. Rarely are more than three blossoms present on each stem. It is a pretty little flower, and makes a good pot-plant.
Lilium Callosum, the callous-bracted lily, is something like a magnified version of the last. The leaves are broader and less numerous than in L. Tenuifolium. The flowers about an inch and a quarter across, of a vivid scarlet or orange. The bracts are thick and horny, a characteristic which has given the plant its name.
The callous lily likes a rich peaty soil, but it is very accommodating and will grow in most good soils. It is perfectly hardy, and is of little difficulty to cultivate.
We now come to a lily which will always be famous, not so much for its intrinsic beauty—though, to be sure, it is a beautiful plant—but because it is the flower which has generally been considered to be the “lily of the fields,” the only plant mentioned by name by our Saviour.
The lily to which we refer is the scarlet Martagon, lily of the fields, lily of Chalcedony, or Lilium Chalcedonicum.
It is doubtful whether we shall ever know for certain which flower was referred to by Christ as “the lily of the fields.” Why the scarlet Martagon should have borne the honour for so long is difficult to see. As far as we have been able to discover, this lily does not grow in Palestine, and though of course we cannot be certain that it did not inhabit the Holy Land in the time of Christ, it is very unlikely that it did, for the lily of Chalcedony knows how to take care of itself, and it is unlikely that it would have become exterminated.
We have no real reason for supposing that the lily of the fields was a true lily—that is, a member of the genus lilium. Even in England at the present day we call a host of liliaceous plants “lilies,” and in the East they are very lax in floral nomenclature.
That the plant referred to was one of superior beauty is probable, but even the meanest flower would answer to the description that “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
It is commonly held now that the plant referred to was either the yellow star-lily (Amaryllis Lutea) or else an anemone. But it may well be that our Saviour meant no special blossom, but by “the lily of the field” He intended any flower to be taken.