LILIES - RHS Lily Group

var. abeanum is a case in point, or perhaps L. japonicum Hyuga form. Other
lily communities have certainly been destroyed by developments such as dam
construction, road building and estate development. However, it must have been
often the case that habitats are dying through environmental changes such as
those which result from failure to trim grassland and forestry in the old ways. It
can be said that L. auratum, L. callosum, L. japonicum and L. rubellum are the
species whose existence in Japan has been influenced most by human lives.
The Okinawa population of Lilium callosum (a population known from its
yellow flowers as var. flaviflorum) was rediscovered for the first time in these
20 years. Yet it has already fallen victim to changing times, with changes in its
habitat management. The island is in “Typhoon alley”, and the thatch which has
been traditional for roofing material there has now given way to concrete. So
grassland has been neglected, allowing over-abundant growth of Japanese silver
grass over two metres in height, destroying almost all the lily’s habitats. On a visit
last year we found just one population of 50 plants, where Imperata cylindrica
grassland had been artificially weakened. As far as I know there is only one other
population on the island now.
Lilium nobilissimum was endemic to Kuchinoshima island, Kagoshima
Prefecture, where its habitat was restricted to the ocean cliff. Lilium nobilissimum’s
Japanese name is Tamoto-yuri: Tamoto is the pouch-forming sleeve of Japanese
clothing, and in the past men lowered on a bamboo contraption slung from the
cliff-top to gathered the bulbs of the lily kept them in this pouch. This precarious
undertaking seems to have been all too successful: the lily is said to be extinct
in the wild now. A few cultivated plants preserve the species. However, in our
Yurigahara Park collection this lily’s germination rate has now declined to about
20%, which I think must be caused by inbreeding depression. Although we will
outbreed the strain with another strain next summer, I am not very hopeful for
the future, over the next several generations. [Editor’s note: This lily is also in
cultivation in the UK, and perhaps elsewhere, but from seed kindly donated
to the Lily Group distribution by Mr Arakawa in the past, so these plants are
unlikely to help with the inbreeding problem.]
Lilium alexandrae ranges over three islands of this same southern chain.
Though it has been reduced by collection, it is sustained in the wild by the
islander’s keen conservation work.
The only surviving habitats of L. concolor are now confined to Shikoku Island,
and the wild population declines.
Lilium longiflorum, L. leichtlinii var. maximowiczii, L. speciosum, L. maculatum
and L. medeoloides are common lilies in their original habitats, through exemplary
preservation and conservation – a textbook case.
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