The popular expression, to gild the lily, means to attempt to improve something that is already perfect.
Hybridizers, however, never believing that the lily could not be improved, have strived to produce finer lilies.
Most intriguing is the long search for the pure yellow trumpet lily which has commanded the attention of many hybridizers.
Starting Point Species
Three species seem to offer a starting point for this search:
- Lilium myriophyllum, a native of southeast China and Burma, hearing ivory white to sulfur yellow trumpets shaded reddish-purple on the reverse
- L. Sargentiae, L. centifolium, and L. regale have a considerable amount of yellow deep in the throat, white petals, and purple or green shading on the outside of the trumpet.
If only one could cross these with a yellow lily, it might be possible to get the yellow color and the trumpet shape in one flower. But what to use?
Edouard Debras
Edouard Debras of France tried crossing L. Henryi, an orange lily with recurved petals, and L. Sargentiae. After many attempts, he succeeded in getting the hybrid which he named Aurelianense.
As would he expected, it showed much variation, but it did not have the combination of yellow and trumpet shape.
Carleton Yerex
Another worker in England repeated the cross with much the same results. Then Carleton Yerex of Oregon tried something different.
He obtained some of the Aurelianensis seedlings. which he crossed and hack-crossed (crossed with the parents) with L. centifolium and L. Sargentiae, and finally succeeded in producing a clear yellow trumpet lily. He called the hybrid the Aurelian Golden Trumpet.
It was 1928 when Debras produced his Aurelianensis hybrids, and it wasn’t until 1950 that Yerex introduced his lily at the national lily show, where it won the sweepstakes award.
During the time Yerex was working with Aurelianensis seedlings, LaVern Freimann of Bellingham, Washington, was working with regal lilies.
He crossed a creamy yellow strain possibly containing some L. rardi blood, which was originally obtained from Luther Burbank, with some gloriosum seedlings, producing a few cream-colored seedlings.
Through repeated crossings, he developed a series of blooms, ranging from clear yellow to deep gold with exteriors flushed with rosy pink. They are now known as the Golden Regals.
Dr. S. L. Emsweller
Dr. S. L. Emsweller of the U. S. Department of Agriculture at Beltsville, Maryland, has been working with some regal seed that was obtained from the bulb station at Bellingham. Washington.
After making selections toward both pink and yellow for several years, he gave some of the seed to employees at Beltsville to grow in their gardens.
E. C. Butterfield
Among these employees was E. C. Butterfield, who flowered some of the seedlings in 1949. One of the seedlings had a butter-yellow trumpet with the same color inside and out.
When this seedling was exhibited at the national lily show in 1950, it won the Director’s Cup. It has been named E. C. Butterfield. and is being propagated for distribution.
I received some of the E. C. Butterfield seed two years ago when it was distributed through the seed exchange of the North American Lily Society.
Less than half of the seedlings have bloomed, but none of them showed any more than the usual amount of yellow for a regal.
About 20 years ago, a hybrid similar to E. C. Butterfield made its appearance. Tom Barry of New Jersey succeeded in producing a beautiful lily which he named T. A. Havemeyer. This lily was a cross of L. myriophyllum and L. Henryi. It has strong characteristics of both parents but is not a trumpet.
T. A. Havemeyer Work
Many breeders have been using the T. A. Havemeyer in their work, but I know that no more pure yellow trumpets have been produced from it yet.
However, several years ago, Dr. Emsweller distributed some seeds resulting from his cross of L. myriophyllum and T. A. Havemeyer to the lily testers of the Men’s Garden Clubs of America.
Two of these seedlings have been reported as being excellent, one having light cream-colored trumpets.
Miss Preston’s Series
Two golden orange lilies belonging to the Stenographer series were produced by Miss Isabella Preston of the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, Canada, when she crossed L. Davidi var. Willmottiae with L. dauricum.
The first yellow varieties produced by Miss Preston in her work with these crosses were called Coronation and Sovereign. Since Miss Preston’s retirement in 1946, the lily breeding work has been continued by others. More yellows will appear soon.
Dr. Emsweller has been working with the Stenographer series, also crossing them with lilies of the elegans group, which range from lemon yellow to brick red. One of the seedlings resulting from this cross is lemon yellow, named MEGA in honor of the Men’s Garden Clubs of America.
In Search For Pink Trumpet
Now let’s see what has been happening in the search for a pink trumpet. Three lily species could be used for the production of the pink trumpet:
- L. japonicum, which is difficult to grow because of its susceptibility to mosaic and basal rot
- L. rubellum, a small plant with small blossoms
- L. regale, which has a considerable amount of red and purple on the backs of the petals.
Freimann has developed a strain of pink trumpets from a regal hybrid seedling which showed a suggestion of pink along the margins of the petals. By repeated crossing and back-crossing, he set the color so that all the seedings would produce pink flowers.
These crosses all involved L. regale, L. centifolium, and L. Sargentiae. Later, Mr. Freimann discovered a plant among his seedlings that produced true purple flowers, and he named it Lilac.
At the national lily show last year, I saw several pink trumpet lilies that were exhibited by Fred Abbey of the Garden-side Nurseries of Vermont. I do not know their parentage, but they had the size, shape, and form of L. regale.
At the same time, others have been trying to improve the more spectacular lily, L. auratum, or the gold hand lily. Dr. Norma Pfeiffer of the Boyce Thompson Institute has been crossing L. japonicum and L. auratum with good success. Auratum-type lilies with varying amounts of pink blush have been produced.
Ralph Warner of Connecticut has been working on the reciprocal cross, using L. auratum as the male or pollen parent, and L. japonicum as the female or seed parent. Both Warner and Dr. Pfeiffer have won special prizes for their hybrids at recent lily shows.
And thus, the search for the gilded lily goes on all over the world.
44659 by Raymond B. Crawford