Lilium Parvum, the little lily, is a graceful plant bearing numerous small blossoms of a full orange, spotted with black.
Lilium Parvum is another misnamed lily, for it often grows five feet high, which is far taller than most lilies. It sometimes bears as many as fifty blossoms.
Lilium Maritimum resembles the last, but the blossoms are far fewer, and are of a brick-red colour. Both these lilies resemble L. Canadense in their growth and habits. The bulb of L. Parvum resembles that of Lilium Pardalinum on a small scale.
Lilium Roezlii, another similar species, bears yellow flowers richly spotted with purple. The bulb is rhizomatous. We figured the bulb of this lily in our October part. L. Grayi we know little or nothing of. We possess a root, but it seems reluctant to flower.
The panther lily, or Lilium Pardalinum, is the finest of the swamp lilies, Humboldt’s lily perhaps excepted. This lily has so much in its favour that it should be grown by everyone who possesses a soil suitable to its culture.
The bulb of this lily is very long, and the rhizome is covered with scales, so that it is impossible to say where the bulb ends and the rhizome begins. It is yellowish in colour, often suffused with pink.
In growth it resembles L. Superbum, but the inflorescence is quite distinct. The flowers are large; the segments deep red for their outer half and bright orange at their base, thickly spotted with black. In the centre of the red portion of the segment is a large black spot bordered with yellow, which gives the whole flower a very attractive appearance. The petioles, or stalks which support the blossoms, are very gracefully curved, a characteristic very well portrayed in the accompanying drawing. Each stem will produce from three to eight blossoms, each about two and a half inches across.
This is another very variable lily, and a large number of its varieties have received special names. The variety Augustifolium, figured in our illustration, is the one commonly grown. L. Pardalinum Warei has flowers of an unspotted apricot colour. It is extremely rare and expensive. L. Bourgoei and L. Pallidifolium are varieties which our knowledge of lilies is insufficient to differentiate.
Perhaps a variety of L. Pardalinum, but more probably a distinct species, Lilium Californicum is distinguished from the last lily by the fewness, but large size, of its blossoms, the greater brilliance of its colour, the abrupt transition from the red to the orange portions of the perianth, and the browner colour of its spots.
L. Pardalinum and L. Californicum require the same treatment as the other swamp lilies except that they must have more leaf mould, more of the mud from the ditch, if you can get it, and less peat and less water.