LILIES - RHS Lily Group

ulbs soon. I have seen this lily growing and in flower in sub-alpine woodland
and also in open pastureland in the Italian Dolomites on the Pordoi Pass and
near Arabba. A Swiss member of the Lily Group, Pontus Wallstén, reports seeing
it growing on wasteland near his home on the edge of Lake Geneva. In White’s
time this lily was also known as Lilium aurantiacum.
Lilium candidum
When I was Editor of the Lily Group’s Newsletter I asked Geoffrey Smith if he
would write an article for me on lilies. Presenter of BBC TV Gardeners World
in the 1980’s and BBC TV World of Flowers, Panellist on BBC Radio Gardeners’
Question Time for 20 years and horticultural and gardening writer I knew
Geoffrey would write an inspirational article and I was not disappointed. Many
of us will have been inspired by Geoffrey’s passion for gardening and it will not
come as a surprise that lilies are one of his favourite flowers.
He went to North America to make programmes for the World of Flowers with
Ed McRae one of North America’s foremost lily growers. As part of the article
Geoffrey wrote: “In the first century A.D. Pliny the Elder wrote in his “Natural
History” “next to the rose there is no fairer flower or one of greater estimation
than the lily”. Though some might argue with that statement certainly after seeing
the “Madonna” lily, Lilium candidum, growing in rock crevices on a sun-baked
hillside in Northern Greece, an experience surely Pliny must have enjoyed, I
would count the rose and the lily as equals.”
Writing about the Madonna Lily in the Modern Herbal Mrs Grieve writes:
“Medicinal Action and Uses; Demulcent, astringent. Owing to their highly
mucilaginous properties, the bulbs are chiefly employed externally, boiled in milk
or water, as emollient cataplasms for tumours, ulcers and external inflammation
and have been much used for this purpose in popular practice. The fresh bulb,
bruised and applied to hard tumours, softens and ripens them sooner than
any other application. Made into an ointment, the bulbs take away corns and
remove the pain and inflammation arising from burns and scalds, which they
cure without leaving any scar. The ointment also had the reputation of being an
excellent application to contracted tendons”.
Gerard in his Herbal tells us: “The root of the Garden Lily stamped with honey
gleweth together sinewes that be cut asunder. It bringeth the hairs again upon
places which have been burned or scalded, if it be mingled with oil or grease. The
root of a white Lily, stamped and strained with wine, and given to drink for two or
three days together, expelleth the poison of the pestilence”. Culpepper (1652) tells
us the bulb was ”an excellent cure for the dropsy”.
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