LILIES - RHS Lily Group

Above, Alan Mitchell photographing an unusual yellow flowered form of Lilium
kellogii, with the photo that he took (inset).
the exact orientation of the plants we found, but I can aver that the flowers were
of a pure and lustrous white and very sweet of scent. I know it’s not impossible
to grow this lily in the UK, as it grows in the Branklyn Garden in Perth, which is
about 30 minutes drive from where I live in Fife. What is, apparently, impossible
is finding an American supplier of bulbs of L. washingtonianum, or any of the
other more challenging Californian species, e.g. L. rubescens, L. bolanderi and
L. kelloggii. Having trawled the Internet on more than one occasion all I
have been able to find, among myriad fairly uninspiring hybrids, are the less
challenging L. pardalinum and L. superbum.
After watching a spectacular 4 July fireworks display, outside our Motel in
Yreka, we discussed the plan for the morrow, which was to backtrack to Mt
Shasta city to look for L. shastense and then to take the road to Mt Shasta in the
hope of finding more L. washingtonianum. In common with most committed
lily hunters, we were on the trail of our first lily of the day before we had eaten
breakfast. If asked, I would say there are two things I’ll remember about the
park in Mt Shasta city. One is L. shastense, a lily that was growing in a muddy,
heavily shaded environment surrounded by thickets of what looked like a giant
version of the Common Horsetail and the other is the source of the Sacramento
73