The issue of “Plants and Gardens,” the publication of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for Summer 1949, contains an article entitled “Diseases in the Lily Garden” by Philip Brierley.
Most of the information in this article is sound, as far as my experience is concerned, and the article is valuable and informative.
However, one statement seems to me doubtful, given the very different behavior of the Lilium philadelphicum in the area around Moose Range, Sask., where my nursery and lily plantations are located.
Resistant Lilies
As might be expected, a portion of the article is devoted to the basal rot of lilies, here called fusarium bulb rot, and a number of the lilies that may be expected to resist it are named.
“The regal lily and its hybrids, and Lilirera sargerdiae are resistant, as are the leopard lily, the tiger lily, L. hansani, and L. leichlini var. maximowiczi.
Others may succeed where the fusarium disease is not too firmly established. Those most vulnerable to the disease are the madonna lily, the nankeen lily and L. formosanum.”
Opinions Differ
The regal lily has been one of the more susceptible species for me. This factor, and the opposite point of view regarding basal rot.
As expressed by Alan and Esther Macneil in their book Garden Lilies, it is worthwhile to keep the topic of resistance or susceptibility of lily species and hybrids in a state of suspension.
I suggest that no decision be made until data has been collected from a far wider area and correlated with this particular problem in mind.
Apparently, the resistance or susceptibility of lilies to basal rot is not a simple, constant thing — a definite feature of each species according to its ancestry.
It may express the unhappiness of each lily in each particular environment, both climatic and soil. A quotation from “Garden Lilies” expresses this point of view.
“It is obvious that if a lily is going to die from basal rot, it must first be exposed to the disease.
But experience tends to indicate that, regardless of the susceptibility of a given species to fusarium, environmental factors are important in determining how an individual bulb will react to infection.
It often seems as if basal rot becomes active in some species as a final symptom of maladjustment.
Soil and Other Factors
The soil and other factors are not right, and the lily is not happy; it appears to have a weak constitution in the particular setting, and often at the end of its struggle, it develops basal rot and dies.
A really appropriate environment, on the other hand, reduces trouble from basal rot to a minimum.
A consideration of the behavior of the native lily of northern Canada can give light on the matter. L. philadelphicum, in the locality of Moose Range.
Favorable Conditions and Fertilization
This lily does well enough when it is allowed to grow wild in the fields of its own choice, but when it is brought into the garden and given the “favorable” conditions of clean cultivation and fertilizer applications, it grows successfully for a few years and then dies.
I know of no other lily so hard to domesticate. If a change of locality were involved in the transplanting, the death of the bulbs would be more understandable.
In my ease, at least, the plants have always been moved only a few rods and into an environment identical to where they had been thriving, except for the one change — that to cultivated soil.
High Soil Temperatures
One tries, not unnaturally, to account for such phenomena. The idea occurred that high soil temperatures resulting from the naked soil might be the difference-making factor for bulbs’ mortality.
Following this thought, I tried mulching the lilies with sawdust. This appeared to have a favorable effect, but I recall the instance of one bulb that died despite such treatment.
I cannot help recalling it since the bulb was the finest variety of the orange-cup lily I have ever seen — a pure yellow without spots, picked up on the roadside near my house.
Dr. Skinner’s Observations
When I told Dr. F. L. Skinner about the passing out of this lily, which he had seen and praised, he remarked that I should have propagated it by scaling instead of leaving it to gather strength by itself. He said, “It is easier to keep it alive that way.”
The implication is that the larger bulb is not necessarily stronger than a part of it. Dr. Skinner, too, has had experience with the death of these valuable lilies when they are found in the wild and brought into the garden for encouragement and culture.
Two Conclusions
It was only last summer that I noticed that basal rot was the immediate cause of the mortality of these lilies and their hybrids.
We have two alternative conclusions on the matter.
One is that the native lily is especially subject to basal rot wherever it is but escapes in the wild because the stand of lilies in the fields is always sparse.
Plants are isolated by many other types of roots that intermingle with the lilies’ roots and do not harbor diseases.
As they occur in the wild, the propagation of these lilies is evidently by seed. So it is conceivable that a lily plant might not occupy the identical spot again for ninny years. Yet the species maintains itself using its abundant seedling.
The other alternative is that the lily is not especially subject to basal rot when its bulb is in cool soil, which it cannot avoid unless man decides to pamper it.
The soil is cool because the foliage of other plants shades it. The bulb, then, succumbs to basal rot because of its maladjustment and unhappiness in warmer soil.
Experiment of Mulching
I intend to try out an experiment of mulching still more deeply — deep enough to keep the soil as cool as it would be in nature. This experiment may shed some light on the problem.
There is, of course, no reason why both alternatives may be partially true, and this lily may be more than usually subject to basal rot even when under the conditions it enjoys most.
Overall, the evidence seems sigh-dent to say that one cannot make a list of resistant and susceptible lilies for more than one garden.
That means that any such list, as that given by Mr. Brierley, must be regarded as only a guide until the site one uses have proved itself.
The Success of Purple Martagon
Many strange things are seen in lilydom. One is that the purple Martagon succeeds much better in Europe than it does in America, and apparently, the cause of its death is basal rot.
Illacneil says, “One of the standard garden lilies both on the Continent and in England, it is not always an easy lily in American gardens.
Practically immune to mosaic, it is rather liable to basal rot in this country.” Therefore, the behavior of this lily would favor the second of the two alternatives considered above.
In this case, of course, it would not be the nakedness of the soil that makes the Martagon unhappy, for that it must receive on both sides of the Atlantic, but some factor of difference as yet unknown.
44659 by Percy H. Wright