LILIES - RHS Lily Group

forested area that was heavily carpeted with moss, which was obviously subject to
regular rainfall. When compared with the rock-hard soil conditions we had found
L. kelloggii growing in near Onion Lake, this suggests a lily that is more tolerant of
the vicissitudes of rainfall (more or less) than the reference books indicate. The
other interesting aspect about L. kelloggii was the variation in flower colour, from
very pale to a deep rose pink (similar in colour to L. wardii). When the yellow
variant (mentioned earlier) is added to this range, it’s a wonder the “splitters”
have accepted that these variations are all expressions of the one species. By
the time we drove back to the coast and headed north past Trinidad (a pleasant,
vaguely neo-hippy town) the Scottish weather had become more appropriately
Californian, i.e. the sun was shining, and we encountered our last roadside lily,
L. columbianum. As time was pressing, we had a limited opportunity to appreciate
this pretty, slightly recurved orange lily before we had to head south to Sacramento.
Up with the lark (or its American equivalent), the last day of the lily chase found
us heading north-east to our starting point, Reno. En-route we visited a graveyard
in a place called Georgetown in the hope of seeing L. humboldtii in flower, but
unfortunately the flowers had past. But I did think what a splendid lily to have
growing on your grave – none better perhaps. Our luck seemed to be leaving
us when we thought we had missed all of the L. parvum in flower in a ditch area
that had once been a guaranteed source for this species. However, we did find
one stem with a few flowers of a lilac pink colour, which was immeasurably better
than nothing. As we didn’t have sufficient time to search for plants of L. parvum
var. hallidayi, Barb decided we should re-visit the stands of L. pardalinum we
had admired on the first full day of the lily chase. It would seem that she must
have had a premonition of something special in making this suggestion, because
among the, probably, hundreds of orange flowered plants growing on both sides
of the road there were a few (five or six) plants that were sporting yellow flowers.
The question is why? Another question is how do the yellow flowered lilies
maintain their colour-integrity when this must surely be under threat through
cross-hybridisation from the army of their orange relatives that surround them?
Unfortunately, I neglected to suggest to Barb that she should, at a later date, collect
seed from the yellow flowered L. pardalinum plants, as it would be interesting
to discover whether the seedlings produced yellow flowers, exclusively, or some
yellow and some orange as does L henryi var. citrinum. Discussing this interesting
find kept us fully occupied until we reached Reno and the end of our six-day,
1500 plus mile lily chase, during which we found ten species and some interesting
hybrids in perfect flowering condition.
In retrospect, and as a seasoned (or old if you prefer) hill-walker, i.e. someone
who is used to parking his car, walking to his objective, climbing it and then
walking back to his car, I found the modus operandi of most of the lily-chase
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