The lilies of this group are all low-growing, rarely exceeding four feet in height. The flowers which are white or pale yellow are usually solitary, but some varieties of Lilium Longiflorum bear as many as five or six blossoms on each stem. The leaves are linear, smooth and numerous, scattered and are all similar. These lilies are natives of Western Asia.
L. Longiflorum, the most important member of the group named after it, is one of the best known and highly appreciated members of the genus. It is usually grown as a pot plant. But why? Why do we so rarely see this plant in the garden? Oh, it is so tender! It will not stand our winters! It dwindles so when grown in the open! Nonsense! This lily is perfectly hardy and is admirably suited to the open ground. But you do not do well with this plant because you will choose the only variety of it which cannot stand our climate.
To most persons L. Longiflorum is synonymous with L. Harrisii. But the latter plant is only one form, and is a rather unsatisfactory form of L. Longiflorum. L. Harrisii is a variety of L. Longiflorum altered by having been grown in the tropical climate of Bermuda. It is a hardy lily rendered tender by coddling. It is undoubtedly a fine variety for the greenhouse, but it is nothing like so fine as some of the other forms of L. Longiflorum.
Although this lily is undoubtedly “long-flowered,” it hardly deserves the specific title of Longiflorum, for it is the least long-flowered of the five plants placed in the same group as itself.
The bulb of this lily presents no deviation from the typical bulb. Indeed it is the typical lily-bulb.
The great number of varieties of this lily, though all are somewhat similar, yet possess considerable differences in regard to their growth, the size and number of their flowers and their period of blossoming.
The variety Harrisii is very fine. It flowers very early and produces three or four blossoms on each stem. The individual flowers are large and finely curved, but they are a little thin and green. When grown in the open, this variety sends up its shoots in February, and they are almost invariably killed by late frosts.
Another variety, called Praecox is similar to Harrisii, but more hardy. It flowers in the open in June and July.
The majority of Longiflorum bulbs received from Japan belong to the variety called, “Giganteum,” but the name is hardly appropriate, for this variety is not so large or fine as some others. For the flower-garden this variety is the most generally valuable. It is tall, robust, free-flowering, perfectly hardy and exceedingly cheap.
Last year we had a small hill-side covered with these lilies, and the effect was delightful. Although we cut several the bed was always gay with blossoms. They flowered in the beginning of August, producing from two to five flowers each, of a pure rich white, not greenish like the flowers of Harrisii, very large and sweet scented. They were not injured by a spell of three days’ rain which occurred in the middle of their flowering-time.