LILIES - RHS Lily Group

ees and butterflies in the air, and steppe ravines become white and rosy like
a bride. Among thickets of shrubs and low trees a dense multi-coloured carpet
of Corydalis bulbosa and Corydalis marschalliana, Scilla sibirica and Tulipa
biebersteiniana appears. In open places the spring steppe is a delicate crisp
green, with spots of yellow and red Shrenk’s tulips, multi-coloured irises (Iris
pumila, Iris halophila), Fritillaria ruthenica and Adonis wolgensis.
They are followed at the end of spring by the fragrant salvias that come into
flower: Salvia tesquicola, S. nutans, S. aethiopica, and perennial and arboreal
astragaluses. Salvia tesquicola can turn the steppe lilac-blue. In the birch groves
on sand hills orchids begin to flower in May. May to the beginning of June is the
period of mass and profuse flowering of many plants of the steppe. Somewhat
later the wild strawberry (Fragaria viridis) begins to ripen on the chalk hills and
steppe ravines. Wether its crop is profuse or berries burnt by the sun, depends
on summer rains. In July the steppe becomes yellow and dry, staying thus till the
first autumnal rains.
The middle of the hot summer is the time to look at the flowering plants of
the water meadows. On the banks of numerous large and small lakes the high
perennial Senecio tataricum is seen from far away because of its large yellow
flowers, together with pink spikes of Lythrum salicaria and Lythrum virgata.
At the end of summer the number of flowers diminishes considerably, but in
autumn the steppe again becomes colourful. Leaves of Euonymus verrucosus
turn to bright red and create the effect of burning fires here and there against
the chalk hills. Yellow leaves of Acer campestre decorate the autumnal forest
against a background of black and grey tree trunks and whitish slopes of chalk
ravines. This is a period of seeds ripening, though the seeds of many ephemeroid
bulbs had ripened at the beginning of summer. Some high grasses from the
Apiaceae family form specific communities and remind one of the more familiar
high grasslands of the Far East. Bright berries of Berberis vulgaris, hawthorns
(Crataegus ambigua and C. rhipidophylla) and various rose species (Rosa
corymbifera, R. majalis, R. microdenia, R. rubiginosa) decorate steppe ravines
for a long time. Step by step the tinges of the steppe become more and more
dull and gloomy. In late autumn, before everything is covered in snow, the grey
colour dominates the steppe, but green tinges appear from the fresh grass of the
steppe plants, such as Festuca valesiaca, feather-grasses and bulbous alliums that
begin to grow after the autumnal rains.
Liliaceous and other bulbs of the Lower Khoper
The steppe zone at the southern end of the European part of Russia is much
richer in bulbous plants compared to the forest zone. Bulb plants belong to
several families, Alliaceae and Liliaceae being the richest among them. Below
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