I received the L. majoense as small bulbs (2) in late fall 2005. One did not return in the season of 2013, the second in 2014.

That's 8 and 9 years of age. I suppose each species has it's own general life expectancy. It would be nice if a list of approximate life expectancies could be compiled for reference. About all I know for sure is that L. pumilum is short lived here of 4 to 5 years, so it's best to start new from seed every couple years. And L. henryi and L davidii are tough as nails and seem to live forever here. For everything else in between, I'm in a fog. I've kind of concluded that it's probably a good idea to scale every 4 to 5 years if possible. That way I could have young mature adult plants for pollination and seed.

Forgot to mention that L. majoense has no propensity for stem bulblets. However, Kushi Maya does.

Leftwood said:Forgot to mention that L. majoense has no propensity for stem bulblets.

This is an important observation and it's associated with your scales that did not produce clone bulblets. There is a direct relationship! My experience with many years of scale clone propagation has shown that to be true in every case. I use this information when scale cloning a young 2 or 3 year old seedling; I am able to predict how fast a particular plant is likely to multiply or colonize. In other words, if someone gave me 6 blind seedling scales and I only got 1 or 2 clone bulblets from 6 scales, the plant is destined to be very low maintainence and it's main method of multiplying would be through bulb division. I've often wondered if this behavior is some sort of evolved self defense.

Interesting thought Lorn. I remember reading somewhere that occasionally, a cross with two lilies that don't produce almost any stem bulblets can produce ones that do! I'm guessing that maybe the genetics of the new lily has an unlocked bulblet gene or something. As far as remembering the propensity for stem/scale bulblets, I tend to agree with you Lorn.

You're on the right track, Joe. In your case, It tells you there's something genetic in the background of either one or both parents at work---also good information to know. But what I'm saying is early scale cloning of a young seedling bulb (which has not yet produced stem bulblets) will let you know this in advance before the mother seedling bulb does. And, if somebody gives you some scales, you'll be able to predict how fast your cloned plants are going to multiply just by the number of scale bulblets produced. There's a reason why Rick didn't get any scale clone bulblets, the results of which could have been predicted, given the fact it ( the mother plant ) did not produce stem bulblets. Or, at the very least, darn difficult and slow to clone.

When I saw that B&D Lilies had Lilium martagon var. albiflorum, I just had to order. It's such a rarity to find it offered in the US. So I scaled the lilies I obtained, and these are the results: more support for Lorn's statements. (Lilium martagon rarely produces stem bulblets.)



Only two of the eight martagon scales produced bulblets, while every scale of the orientpets produced multiple bulblets.

I got an albiflorim too Rick! Very excited by it!

Same here!

What can I say.... we have good taste!
I got two, on the outside chance that maybe I might get two clones so I could produce seed. One scale from each produced a bulblets.