I wanted to create a new thread regarding lilium species and new scientific discoveries about them but then I thought it would be great to create megathread about everything regarding species. We have many thread in which we talk about species and share their photos (Pics of species?, Species Lily Bulb etc.) and information about cultivation but I think having everything in one place is better for us and new members that are interested in species.
So focus of this thread:
1. Photos of species, subspecies, varieties and selections.
2. Cultivation information about lilium species.
3. Tips on growing species from seed mainly based on your own experience (with particular lily).
4. New scientific advances and articles regarding species.
I may have forgotten something, but I believe you got an idea of the topic. All about lily species in one place from now on, not fragmented into several threads. I hope the moderators have nothing against it. For me, having everything in one thread is much nicer.
Edit: links of previous big species threads that you can check:
The thread "Pics of species?" in Lilies forum
The thread "Species Lily Bulbs" in Lilies forum

Regale time!


Henryi and leucanthum:


Speciosum is very slow:

@Lucius93 - perhaps you could edit your first post to include links to all the existing threads so that they don't get lost?

Yes...I knew I forgot something. Will do!
Edit: Done!

Seedling update (regale x2, henryi and formosanum):




Today I use my mycorrhiza on few boxes. Will see if anything happens.

Soon. Cannot wait!

Something happened to this little sulphureum. I think too much moisure in combination with high temperatures.

Pity about the L. sulphureum, Luka!

I have 6 more so it's ok. And new bulbils are forming on big one. Will have more then 30 next year I think.
I am still learning with this one. It's not vigorous like regale. You need to manage water very carefully even if you grow it in raised bed. 2 days of heavy rain was enough to kill him.

Other sulphureums. I won't have flowers this year.

Good reason to favor planting more than one of a particular lily, or to scale and have that back up plan.

True but some lily species are so rare and expensive that back up plan is not possible. My sulphureum collection cost me more money than all other lilies I have combine.

scaling is always an option, isn't it?

Depends on species and bulb size.

So lilium saccatum is now synonym of lilium souliei (since 2015). I didn't know that. That makes no sense.

Lucius93 said:So lilium saccatum is now synonym of lilium souliei (since 2015). I didn't know that. That makes no sense.

As I thought this is completely wrong and will probably change in the future. Bjornar Olsen observed all these lilies in nature and saw a clear difference (a difference is also seen in cultivation). Lilium georgei and saccatum could be one lily but souliei is different.

The reason for the change in classification was that the distinguishing feature was found to be present in both "species"; hence saccatum was merged back into souliei:

https://www.mapress.com/pt/art...

Abstract said:Lilium saccatum S. Y. Liang (1987: 540) was published in the Flora of Xizangica based on the material of Qinghai-Xizang Expedition (No. 74-3754) collected on July 30th, 1974. In the protologue, the author compared this species to L. souliei (Franchet) Sealy (1950: 296) and indicated that the former had basally saccate tepals compared to the latter, and based on this point the new species was recognized. However, the original description and type specimens of L. souliei has already displayed this feature (Fig. 3J–M in Sealy 1950; our Fig. 1A), until now, this feature has not been listed in both the Flora of Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae (Liang 1980), and Flora of China (Liang & Tamura 2000).

I'd be interested to hear why they should be separated again.

Ah, can't share facebook group posts. Whole plant looks different and there is no way they are synonyms of one another. Georgei and saccatum sure, but souliei is distinct. Good news that Matthias sent his in-vitro material of all 3 types to America for gene-analysis several months ago. We'll know everything in near future. If I understood correctly these guys just sat inside their office and looked at herbarium specimens and make decision. You need field work.

The main problem here is: l. georgei is widely recognized as synonym of saccatum. Everyone who saw these two species in nature couldn't find any difference. So if saccatum is synonym of souliei then georgei should be also. But right now they recognize georgei as separate species but saccatum as synonym of souliei. Doesn't make any sense.

Hmm. It could be an issue in naming. I recall one instance that occurred with Cymbidium orchids where a name (Cym. zaleskianum) was incorrectly associated with a natural hybrid for decades until the only surviving source material was examined and found to be just a regular Cym. tracyanum. Zaleskianum (uppercase "Z") is still used to refer to the artificial hybrid made from the same parents, but the botanical name is now Cym. wilsonii.

So I guess the next question is whether the type samples actually match what is being called L. georgei and L. saccatum in the field.

Yes, naming can cause big confusion. This happened with lilium majoense, synoynm of primulinum ochraceum. The lily currently being grown as "majoense" is neither primulinum ochraceum nor majoense! The name was misapplied to imports from Chen Yi by Brian Mathew in his April, 2000 newsletter. He had clearly not seen the type specimen, and based his identification on the brief type description by Leveille.

They are not flowering size but still they produce a lot of bulbils.