LILIES - RHS Lily Group

June to the end of July.
Lilium martagon is easily recognised by the whorled lower and middle leaves
and the rather numerous flowers borne in an extended raceme. Plants from
central Europe have pale, usually spotted flowers and glabrous buds. Many of
the Greek plants have rather dark flowers which are either uniformly brownishpurple
or have indistinct raised spots; the flower buds are lanate, i.e., have
long soft woolly hairs. Such plants have been called var. cattaniae or var.
sanguineo-purpureum, but it is not clear whether all Greek plants share these
features. Observations on variation in and between the Greek populations would
be welcome.
4. Lilium chalcedonicum
The native distribution of this bright scarlet lily is probably restricted to Greece
and S Albania, although species with a similar flower colour occur elsewhere, e.g.
L. pomponium in the Maritime Alps (see pp. 24). Being a spectacular species it was
taken into cultivation early, and pictures undoubtedly showing L. chalcedonicum
appear in German Kräuterbücher from the sixteenth and seventeenth century; it
is likely to have come to central Europe via Turkey.
Lilium chalcedonicum occurs in somewhat damp, semi-shaded, rocky places
in open deciduous woods, Buxus scrub and meadows, generally between
600 and 1700 m and usually on limestone. It is rarely found in large quantity
except maybe on Mt Iti in Sterea Ellas where I have observed large and healthy
populations. It flowers late, generally from mid-July to mid-August. The tepals are
generally bright and uniformly scarlet and strongly recurved with long papillae
towards the base; also the anthers are bright scarlet. Slightly paler forms with
indistinct spots are found occasionally.
Some authors including Halácsy (Conspectus Florae Graecae) and Hayek
(Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Balcanicae) have regarded Lilium heldreichii as
specifically distinct from L. chalcedonicum, differing in the consistently 1-flowered
stem, lower leaves less crowded and wider, and leaves abruptly decreasing in
size up the stem. Differences have also been cited in shape of bulb scales and
stigma. Turrill (Lily Year Book 17: 34-36, 1954) examined fairly abundant material
and came to the conclusion that there are no consistent differences. Having
studied plants both in the field and in cultivation I fully agree with this view.
In nature L. chalcedonicum is generally 35-70 cm tall and has 1-3 or occasionally
up to 4 flowers. Transplanted into good garden soil and grown in semi-shade
they may be around 100 cm tall and develop up to 12 flowers. Three bulbs
were transplanted from a population on Mt Olympus in 1975 to the Copenhagen
Botanical Garden and subsequently to my private garden north of Copenhagen
where they were grown successfully for 25 years. The bulbs could be divided
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