Looking very good, Dave! Certainly better than mine...

Looking good Dave.

Thanks everyone!

Nhra_20 said:Updated pictures on the sedlings going.


Anyone want to guess the tetras and the late germinaters?

Have you ever gotten weird seedlings like variegated or fasciated? I always am on the lookout for odd plants to buy.

Hi Keith,

My understanding is fasciated Liliums generally return to normal the following year. There are cultivars that are more prone to fasciation, though, given the right conditions. Haven't seen any variegated Liliums yet.

Guntis Grants has created one which if I understand correctly from the google translation has white edged foliage called 'Baltgalve'. A bit hard to make out how pronounced the effect is, although from the pics it seems the effect might be most visible on the younger foliage: http://www.daugmaleslilijas.lv....
Lilium japonicum 'Albomarginatum' has slight white edges as well.

Ooooh, I like the effect that 'Baltgalve' creates.

Keith, Yes, every now and then a strange one will show up. Almost always they are 'freaks of nature' in ways too numerous to describe except for your wildest imagination. These freaks were never intended by Mother Nature and usually don't survive past their first year. In breeding and if they do survive, these freaks are almost always culled to stop further corruption of the bloodline genetics within a particular development program. Fasciation and fused budding are the most common forms of freaks that occur with flowering and fruiting plants, to the point where they can hardly be called freaks anymore. With lilies, the Oriental-Trumpet cultivar Red Hot is perhaps the most prone to fasciation.

I have not had anything fasciate here. Wonder if it got that name because it is kind of fascinating. Lol

Ruth and Hugh Cocker had a variegated leaf asiatic lily. I don't think it ever got a name, just a number. As I recall, the white was mostly at the tips of the rounded leaves (likely from L. maculatum blood) and followed the leaf edge back about half way. Overall, it had a pretty weak constitution, at least for me.

So I'm hoping someone will be able to give me some advice. I've noticed that my seedlings don't seem to be doing well as many of the photos here and in a few cases, abruptly "collapse". Apart from possible under/over-watering (which I'm still trying to get right), I'm not sure what could be the problem.

L. japonicum - emerged either 1st or 2nd of February. First photo is from yesterday; second is this morning. Seeds were started in vermiculite & perlite, then vernalised, then potted up in a potting mix that included some fertiliser.


L. pardalinum var. pitkinense - emerged early October. 7 out of the 9 still have their leaf, but they're not very big. Started in a mix of Debco seed-raising mix (which contains a small amount of fertiliser), vermiculite and perlite. Added some more seed-raising mix as they started growing leaves to cover the bulbs.


L. candidum - started emerging late Sept/early Oct. First one sent up its first true leaf over the course of December; second one over January this year; third and fourth at the end of January; fifth one started a week or so ago. Started in an unfertilised soil mix (added some fertiliser and moved to where it would get more direct morning sun somewhere between the 25 and 30th of Jan). I'm guessing the environmental conditions and lack of food are to blame for the sporadic growth? Photos are: 3rd Nov, 11th Jan and 21st Feb.


Any suggestions for how to improve would be much appreciated.

I've had one or two do that (collapse) while everything else seemed fine in the same batch and are still fine now several months later.

I have two batch's of L. candidum (from Dellac), none have sprouted yet. Other things from Dellac have. So L. candidum may just be slow/sporadic by default, makes sense from a survival point of view and being a species that kind of behaviour doesn't alarm me but someone growing L. candidum probably knows far more.

Some things seem to take a while to germinate, possibly been too hot (unsure how applicable that is for you in Melbourne, I'm in Sydney, most days have been over 30C with only a few days with a max temp in the high 20's...this last week has been much cooler than the previous three months). I mean I got my NALS seed early december, planted it then. Two tet asiatic seeds germinated early within a few weeks, then nothing. This last week though (so...close to 3 months after planting) a lot of things are showing signs of germination, only difference is the past week has been consistently under 28C...may be a coincidence but a lot of other seed has temperature ranges. Just as an observation, that same bag of tet asiatics has now sprouted 12 more.

I know everyone says winter here isn't anything to worry about..still tiny bit concerned given how it's now "autumn" and we're heading into dormancy (or active growth for a lot of South African bulbs...)

Thanks @Protoavis. Nice to know I'm not the only one with the random collapses. How big are your seedlings?

I'm now convinced L. candidum's behaviour here is weather-related. Melbourne weather has been all over the place this summer. In the last week the remaining two seedlings have started sending up their first true leaf:



I've had lot of trouble with oriental seeds here. I was given a number of hybrids with L. speciosum in them and started them late June/early July. Nothing happened for months and I gave up frequently checking them. Then sometime over summer (between my last check on the 20th of Nov and the next on the 23rd of Feb) , a number of them germinated! I blame the weather (we had some unseasonably cold days during February).

The seedlings planted in October, about half the height of a baggie. No true leaves. I feel like more should have germinated (only around half did) so I've held off on feeding. The collapsed ones happen soon after sprouting, I assume possibly just defective in some way. Not particularly impressive in size. I'm a little paranoid about killing them off, first batches of lilium seed.

The tet asiactics that sprouted in dec are about the same, just a lot more sprouted in the last week. The rest either very newly sprouted or showing signs (being in baggies some of the roots and sprout formation are viewable on seeds that are maybe a little too close to the bag.

Speaking of variegated seedlings - I had one many years ago that grew from seed from the NALS seed exchange. The seed was labeled Olympic hybrids which were white trumpet hybrids. It showed the variegation from the first true leaf in the seedling pot. Here is an old picture of it from 2001 - you can see the slugs had dined on the edge of some of the leaves.



This seedling survived for 5 or more years and bloomed with a single flower a few times. It was a really weak grower and the flower was disappointing.

auratum said:Speaking of variegated seedlings - I had one many years ago that grew from seed from the NALS seed exchange. The seed was labeled Olympic hybrids which were white trumpet hybrids. It showed the variegation from the first true leaf in the seedling pot. Here is an old picture of it from 2001 - you can see the slugs had dined on the edge of some of the leaves.



This seedling survived for 5 or more years and bloomed with a single flower a few times. It was a really weak grower and the flower was disappointing.

I'm in love 😍. Do you still have it or any bulbils?

Nope - lost it a few years ago. I babied it all I could but it was just too weak with the reduced chlorophyll.

auratum said:Nope - lost it a few years ago. I babied it all I could but it was just too weak with the reduced chlorophyll.

Aw that's a shame, you would think the bulb would of survived.

So, just further highlighting that temp plays a significant part and that sowing at the beginning of summer (sydney, so quite warm typicallyer over 30C) just resulted in little germination but now into autumn everything but l.candidum and two batches of OT or OTT have germinated very well.

Woah, those Sydney summer temps have been too high for happy germination. I planted some candidum (from the same source) about 4 weeks ago and it started coming up a week ago. Over a couple of years of experimenting I've found candidum is happy to germinate here in the autumn and is fine through winter. I just can't get it to flowering size.

If my summer temps were so consistently high I'd be tempted to do all my epigeal planting in autumn and winter. Sydney winters are around mid-teens usually? That would be perfect. I should have thought of that sooner, forgot just how much warmer (and more humid) it can be up there. Sorry.

So collapsing seedlings... I'm thinking fungal problems. Damping off or botrytis getting hold from the get-go. Goodness knows what, but with higher temps (both Melbourne and Sydney) and higher humidity it's highly likely. Also, over-watering is the most common trap for first-time lily-sowers, even if we think we're being cautious we tend to over-water rather than under- and if any babies are too moist they will quickly succumb to fungal problems.

Mind you, you're right Protoavis, that some seedlings are just genetically weak (or not suited to the conditions they find themselves in).

I've had a wretched seed season this year. Firstly I tried another new potting mix and the lilies hate it. Too late, hah - I filled and sowed scores of styrofoam boxes before I had an inkling... but secondly we had SO MUCH SPRING RAIN the poor things that didn't drown, starved. Surviving seedlings have just sat there, gone yellow and purple and sulked and I haven't found anything that can remedy the situation. I'm not up to the task of transplanting thousands and thousands of rice-grain-sized babies into new soil. Last time I had a batch of mix that stunted seedlings it took a couple of years for it mellow, then the lilies grew as normal. I guess that implies some kind of allelopathy caused by under-composted plant matter?