LILIES - RHS Lily Group

Hence this review…
We are extremely fortunate that the majority of the books listed have been
written by lily enthusiasts, and the offerings by garden writers with their limited
knowledge of the cultivation of lilies are few and far between. The ratings in the
accompanying tables (pages 37, 38 & 39) refer to the ‘meat’ content. Many of
the books, although they may not rate highly in the tables, are interspersed with
useful hints and anecdotes. I would commend the majority for further study.
Methodology
In deciding the parameters to be selected for the accompanying spreadsheets I
took into account the factors one would probably look for in the selection of a
good lily book. The first five are self-explanatory.
Due to the nature of the article it is necessary to severely curtail many of the
subjects otherwise I could end up with the whole of the Yearbook devoted to
this review. I have deliberately omitted the ISBN numbers simply because they
are not relevant to the early books.
Pagination
Pagination does not take account of things such as print or page size – i.e. one
work is printed in full folio and some others are printed in octavo with every size
in between. Works with less than a hundred pages can usually be regarded as
samplers or an introduction to the genus.
The ratings are self-explanatory: P = poor; F = fair; G = Good; VG = very good;
and E = excellent.
History; species; hybrids; cultivation; propagation are all self-explanatory.
Taxonomy
There are a number of parameters I could have included within botany such as physiology
and morphology, but I considered that taxonomy was the most important.
Ecology
The subject of ecology has been and continues to be poorly dealt with in most
works, and without a good understanding of ecology the subject of cultivation
becomes a question of trial and error.
Illustration
I have not gone into the details of black and white or colour illustrations unless
these illustrations are of an exceptional nature, in which case it is mentioned in
36