LILIES - RHS Lily Group

initiate a programme of chromosone counts of lilies. Sir Daniel Hall agreed to
carry out the work at the John Innes Horticutural Institution, and the Bentham
Trust donated £25 towards the costs of the work (“thus no financial burden
would fall upon the Society”). The result of this labour was a three-part article
in the 1934 Year Book.
In co-operation with staff of the RHS Garden at Wisley a number of research
projects were proposed and commenced. There is virtually no record of the
results in the minutes of the Lily Committee. Thus we read of experiments
on the influence of water levels and drainage, attempts to grow lilies in pits of
different soils, the study of root development in lilies, systematic comparison of
methods of scaling and measurement of carbon dioxide levels around the bulbs
of imported lilies together with its effect on storage rots. Like all contemporary
biological research, not merely in horticulture, the experiments and trials were of
an empirical nature and their design and objectives seem simplistic in the extreme
by comparison with modern work chronicled later in Dr Waister’s article 2 .
In 1934 Stoker began pressing for the collection of data on the identification
of lily bulbs, the eventual result of which was W. A. Constable’s article “The
Comparison of Lily Bulbs” in the 1946 Year Book (the original drawings for
which are in the Lindley Library). Some proposals never reached fulfilment,
among them Arthur Groves’ projected “synonimicon” of lilies and Thomas Hay’s
demand for a comprehensive bibliography of lily literature.
After the conclusion of the 1932 Conference, the Lily Committee’s meetings
were largely devoted to show schedules and the publication of the Year Book;
almost the only technical discussion recorded in the minutes was the debate over
whether or not Lilium duchartrei and L. lankongense were distinct species. By
1937 the Committee could record the verdict of J.D. Stewart of the Lily Garden,
Oregon City, that “For some years we have regarded these Year Books as our
most valuable source of information on lilies, and we appreciate this good work
of the Royal Horticultural Society”.
In 1939, the Reverend Professor E.S. Lyttel presented a silver cup “to be
awarded annually on the recommendation of the Lily Committee to someone
who has done good work on behalf of Lilies, Nomocharis or Fritillaries” 3 . The
first recipient of the Lyttel Cup was Arthur Grove, for his publications which “in
2 Review of the Lily Literature 1988-1991 published in Lilies and Related Plants 1992-1993,
(pp. 99-105).
3 Professor Lyttel also presented a silver cup for a similar purpose to the Alpine Garden
Society, which embodied his other great horticultural interests. That original cup is still
awarded today. The first Lyttel Cup presented to the Lily Committee has disappeared,
presumably into a melting pot. The one presented today is a smaller cup created at a
later date but still known as the Lyttel Cup.
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