In all forms of art, the more rigid the boundaries and rules, the more difficult it is to create good work.
The art of raising better lilies is firmly hounded in all directions, hemmed in by natural limitations imposed upon it by climate and soil, limited in variations of color, scent, and form, and by linkages of characteristics, incompatibilities, and affinities inherent in the lily family.
Like a true artist, the lily breeder attempts to break through these boundaries and modify them.
As time passes, chance mutations and artificially induced genetic changes may help him in his tusk.
He may then be able to introduce new factors or accentuate old ones far beyond the scope of the wild lilies we now know.
Lilies As Raw Materials
Let us look at his raw material. Lilies grow in broadband, circling the North Pole between the 60th and 10th degrees of latitude in Asia, North America, and Europe. By and large, they have colorful, shapely, and fragrant flowers and resent being moved.
They will not readily cross with one another nor yield easily to the demands of civilization. Yet, little by little, the lily breeders are breaking down this resistance.
We should visualize the lily family as it might be painted on a large canvas by those who work with it. As yet, the design is but lightly sketched in and can be seen only vaguely.
Some lily breeders are at work filling out the main lines of the design, brightening and strengthening them in color and outline, and giving them direction.
Others fill in the broad fields as untouched, cresting minor pictures that will support and highlight the broad pattern laid down by nature.
This work is now sufficiently advanced to show what the picture may look like 100 years from now.
Modern Garden Lily
The modem garden lily is emerging; the finished canvas will sparkle with its full range of colors and forms, to be enjoyed in our gardens from May to November.
Let us look over the shoulders of the workers and see what is being done.
The canvas is large, for it must include many species and the work done with them in Australia and New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Holland, France, and England.
The material with which we lily breeders work is curiously divided among us. We see men from many countries working in a narrow field, crowding one another.
Then their accomplishments will show up at an accelerated tempo, and their products quickly take on strong form and outline, giving us refinements that, in that particular strain, bring us quickly to the limits of the canvas.
Beyond that, normal breeding cannot progress, and a mutation must occur to enlarge the scope of the entire work.
We see solitary figures working in the wide open spaces of unexplored areas, building, step by step, their contributions to the whole work of art that is being created.
Still, other workers are busily rounding out earlier achievements and interweaving the patterns stemming from different roots.
Selection and hybridization are the tools, the wild lilies of the world, the raw material, and the gardens of the Northern Hemisphere, the testing grounds for these artists.
New Strains
Selection has given us magnificent, robust, healthy strains of many wild lilies.
Lilium auratum platyphyllum, as it is raised from seed in Oregon and British Columbia in the virgin ground, is a far cry from the stocks brought to us from afar. L. speciosum rubrum in named varieties such as Oregon Giant,
Red Champion, or Lucie Wilson, and L. speciosum album varieties such as White Champion, all raised from single selected plants and shipped with a heavy root system in time for fall planting, represent a new concept of what such lilies can be like in the garden. They are the ones that will succeed.
Through generation after generation of pure-line breeding, always using the finest plants as seed and pollen parents, L. martagon album has been brought to perfection, a harmony of green and white that was never present in its wild state.
The same can be said for many lilies now being improved and tamed by patient growers:
- L. cernuum, small lilac bells swaying in the wind
- L. concolor, twinkling stars of firefighter’s red
- L. amabile, stiffly proud in lacquer-red dress
- L. amabile luteum, arrayed in saffron yellow
Improved, New Lily Strains
Others are still being improved, new strains of L. sulfurous, the finest trumpet lilies with huge, sulfur-yellow, non-fading flowers, only recently reintroduced from China.
Strong-growing forms of L. duchartrei, L. napa lense, L. japonica, and L. rubellum, to name but a few, will soon be available to take their place in the garden, along with their better-known relatives.
New cultural techniques are also being discovered and applied. Already they have given us the disease-resistant Madonna lilies, sold under the name of Cascade Strain.
They are responsible for the birth of L. candidum White Elf, a gem for the small garden. And have given us better Easter lilies, such as Croft and Estate.
Resting firmly on the foundation of the improved, selected strains of the wild species and the full range of scientific knowledge are new hybrids that derive their strength and good qualities from parents of proven merit.
In their inheritance, they find tolerance to changed conditions and resistance to the pests and diseases incident to garden culture in cramped quarters. They comply with their creators’ will and wishes in habit, color, and form.
Make no mistake; these new hybrid lilies are not the children of chance. Even though everyone might be the result of uncontrolled pollination, brought about by the bees or wind, the new lilies are molded by our tastes.
They are the dream children of men of vision who patiently strive for perfection and harmony of color and line.
Successful Lily Breeders
Some lily breeders find their inspiration and critical judgment in studying music. In our ranks, we count Alan Macneil of North Springfield, Vermont, one of America’s foremost composers.
Others find it in science, research, and teaching. Successful lily breeders such as S. L. Emsweller, F. G. Taylor, George L. Slate, E. F. Palmer, Norma Pfeiffer, F. L. Skinner, and Isabella Preston have a rich background of academic study and achievement as a foundation for their standards and critique.
Still others, like L. N. Freimann, Carleton Yerex, and Leslie Woodruff, find their values in the beautiful country in which they live.
The inspiration from the breathtaking views of their nurseries is a guarantee that nothing unworthy will come from their hands.
What they have created is magnificent; as to what the future holds, the glimpses allowed us occasionally indicate that there is even more fabulous treasure in store for us.
The stately trumpet lilies are blended with the willowy L. henryi to give us a warm-toned medley of intermediate shapes and colors, such as in Sunburst, Heart’s Desire, and Golden Clarion lilies, or the Havemeyer strains. L. auratum.
The gold-banded lily has been crossed with the crimson-spotted L. speciosum to give us Jillian Wallace. This Australian beauty is, at present, the undisputed queen of all lilies.
Ralph Warner of Milford, Connecticut, and Norma Pfeiffer of Yonkers, New York, have crossed L. auratum with L. rubellum to produce hybrids of ethereal beauty.
Trumpet Lilies
Where L. regale used to be our only stand-by in the trumpet group, we now have the much finer Olympic and Green Mountain hybrids, newly named varieties such as Galahad and Green Dragon, and new color variations that show up in the L. leucanthum, L. sulfurous, and L. argentine hybrids.
L. Amabile has been used by many breeders, for it imparts immunity to virus diseases and its brilliant color to its offspring.
Its yellow variant, L. amabile luteum, though in itself, like all albino forms, not a strong grower, imparts its golden color and the same immunity to its seedlings. The new brilliant yellow lilies Prosperity and Felicity are good examples.
Many breeders have worked with the upright-flowering L. Maurice and bulbiferous. Adding L. concolor to the strain has produced garden lilies that fill an important place in our present-day gardens.
I need only point to Louis Vasseur’s Moonlight, Slate’s Satan, the Golden Chalice Hybrids, and the gay Rainbow strain to prove this point.
The Flamingo, Mandarin, Radiance, and Tangerine varieties have been seen at many shows and are already popular.
Upright Lilies
Crossed with our American upright species, L. Philadelphia, these upright lilies produced Dr. Skinner’s fine Azalea and Glow.
Crossed with selected forms of L. David, they produced Miss Preston’s brilliantly colored varieties, which I consider Lillian Cummings the most promising.
When L. tigrinum was crossed with these lilies, we soon found many fine introductions. The brilliant red outward-facing lilies, such as Valiant, Redbird, Seneca, or my own Meteor and Jubilee, are garden lilies of undoubted merit. Which one of all these is the best remains to be seen.
Another group of lilies, resulting from the same cross, has bell-shaped, recurved flowers.
Some of them emulate the tiger lily but are healthier and earlier. Talisman is a good example, a rapid grower producing stem bulbils in inexhaustible supply.
The next logical step, along the lines laid down by Gregor Mendel, was to backcross these lilies once more with the best types of upright-flowering hybrids.
This breeding line produced the mid-Century Hybrids, of which the patented Enchantment is my favorite. There are 16 named varieties in this strain, each distinct in color, habit, and flowering season.
American Natives
In American natives, the names of Luther Burbank, David Griffith, and, more recently, Mrs. Norman Henry and Dr. Albert Vollmer must be mentioned.
The Bellingham Hybrids, the culmination of Dr. Griffith’s efforts, have gone a long way in spreading the gospel of the lily. Many other breeders might be mentioned here, each with the lily hybrids for which they are responsible.
In ever-increasing numbers, the lilies travel from the growing fields of America to forward-looking dealers and nursery workers who list them and from there to the gardens of our country and the world.
They are well on their way to becoming America’s greatest contribution to ornamental horticulture. We could not find a finer or nobler flower to represent us.
44659 by J Graafff