I was talking about Lankon last night and never knew that it was two species lilies crossed together to form that lily. I have 10 of them in my new gardens....
Also had no idea that Henri is crossed with so many to come up with all the different hybrids and that it could cross with a trumpet or oriental and so on. Only have 3 of them to be planted......

I am trying to gain knowledge on the lilies that are in the bed to what crossed with that to produce that lily........sorta thing...

Might be interesting to see say How the Casablanca came to be or the stargazer as well as other lilies. Even the non popular lilies would be neat to hear about....

maybe you have crossed some yourself and have some new unique looking flowers.....

sorta like a family tree............hahahah for lilies

Pat, I was wondering, I'm in Chicago and I planted both Lankon and Kushi Maya. Kushi maya is just peeking out of the ground but still no sign of Lankons emergence. Have yours emerged?

Pat, as you're speaking of Star Gazer, I was wondering if you perhaps already viewed this: Short-Stories-of-Lily-History?
If not, it's very interesting reading and Lorn tells the story very well.

Hi John, that's sounds a bit worrisome with Lankon.

My climate probably differs quite a bit from yours, but for what it's worth I can tell you that my Lankons started emerging in February - we did however have an exceptionally mild winter. The Lankon bulbs were planted late in April 2014 in a fairly protected and warm site, so were well established. I assume they would be later to emerge had they been autumn planted. As a reference the latest of other established lily varieties have just poked their noses above the ground a week or two ago.

But of course one shouldn't abandon hope to early. Last year I had a couple of spring planted orienpets that refused to show. I carefully dug down beside them only to find sprouts that had started to grow a bit and then died. The bulb was still firm and nice. This year they are back .

No Kushi Maya here at all..yet... I planted them quite awhile ago and they are not showed up in lots yet...
and my Lankons are not planted yet.....
they are coming in a few days.......and will be planted then
we are much colder here
but all the OT are up and poking through the rest of the them in the garden all accept the walkway ones and they are only now peaking through.
we had a brutal winter here and a late spring..........now we are finally seeing nice temps

I was thinking of this thread more to hear of what crosses with what to produce what and maybe who came up with that lily.....
stargazers are nice but you see so many of them. this year I have lots of different ones that none of my neighbour would likely have seen.....

I know the story behind most of the species lilies from reading McRae's book which is excellent....

William.

I'm glad you enjoyed my story on Star Gazer. I try to write about things that are sort of off the regular beaten path and explore the lessor known areas of lily growing history.

What lilies do you grow? Do you hybridize?

I work primarily with Div. VI, Trumpets and Aurelians. Later on this summer I'll be posting pictures of many of my hybrids here. We all like pictures on this forum so I'm looking forward to seeing all your favorites.

William

G'day to you too, William

Hi Lorn, Mutisia, vanozzi (and everyone else for that matter) and many thanks for the warm welcome!

I'm afraid my hybridizing efforts are non existent, at least so far. However I do enjoy reading about the subject very much and find myself often wondering why a lily has one or another quality, resistance to diseases, grows particularly tall, is quicker or slower to establish and so on.

Until a few years ago we didn't grow many lilies here, the main reason being that I didn't understand the lily beetle behaviour well enough to keep them under control without pesticides, which I prefer not to use. The only lilies being exactly those famous 'Star Gazers', never growing well in the alkaline soil we have here and some skinny LA's , always chewed by lily beetles and then what was left of them all disappeared one winter, probably straight into the mouth of hungry rodents .

Then I heard about 'Tree' lilies and of course I had to try again. Yes, I'm ashamed to say that they almost fooled me with that, had it not been for Google .

For lilies I do like almost all of them, but currently I have a slight preference for Asiatics, especially those with down facing flowers and of course those 'Tree' lilies... I mean Orienpets.

I am curious as to why Atrium is so hard to grow as a lily...(Gold Band). I have been reading it has been used in many hybrids of which I do not know the name of them. If someone has crossed it would love to know the name. they say that it gets a bad virus for almost anyone that plants it after a year or two and I have about 10 of them planted this year......

My daughter in law got fooled by the lily trees but I did not......... I called the so named company on that as a matter of fact since trees do not die down to the ground.
Orienpets are tall but not as tall as they claim the trees can get.... I am curious on the back ground of the purple prince though in particular and it cross. although I do not buy into the tree I have 33 of these planted here and so far this year they are making an outstanding show just coming out of the ground and HUGE. I was hoping or mauve but sounds like they are going to be more black/purple type of orienpet in bloom.

My main preference is the trumpets... and of course the species lilies ........

IS my understanding right that every single lily has a species somewhere in its background??

Well that company must have been really desperate for sale, if they tried to make people think the lilies had actual tree trunks... I thought this usually was more of an exaggerated height reference, but I guess a seller could twist this even further.

Don't worry about the Purple Prince, it's going to be more or less pink... With perhaps just a little purple. Personally I'd love a true purple, O.T., but this is also just marketing and Photoshop.

well that is more or less a good thing.......... pink is better then black/purple. Dark purple is not my color for a lily......... just my opinion I guess......... they are coming up dark dark stems and shoots of the garden in relation to the other OT that are basically green. they stand out in the garden big time........

there is a great article on the internet in reference to Lily Trees and yet you are seeing more or more companies making reference to there lily like tree bulbs for sale ...........since the other company called and trade marked lily tree. I also see this year they are selling what they are calling a Giant Trumpet....... more or less another OT is my guess...........

as far as the thick trunks as per said from the same company that it can hold up a bike. I have heard from some lily breeders up here that some of there OT out in the fields take some pretty big cutters..to get them down to ground they are so thick.....

anyhow lets hope the purple prince is pinker then purple.......that would be great for me...... I also heard that it depends on the amount of the light and that not all the purple prince will be the same color......some might be lighter and some might be darker..... with 33 of them across the back of the garden I will likely get a few of each of them..

Yep, every hybrid has two or more species ancestors. You might have to go back many generations, but the species are where all our hybrids come from.

Some lilies however are a selection from just one species; 'Uchida', for example, a famous Lilium speciosum selection. That means both its mum and dad were L. speciosum plants, but it had outstanding characteristics and was distinct enough as an individual to be named and increased vegetatively.

wow that is pretty cool about Uchida. I am going to google search that lily.........
how does that happen if both parents are the same............are the young lilies not the exact same
or are some all different in the seed pods
wander about that with L. Regale too if the seeds are planted some going to be a bit different with the same parents.....

patweppler said:how does that happen if both parents are the same............are the young lilies not the exact same
or are some all different in the seed pods

One needs to look at the big picture, Pat. Lilium species are a lot like human species:

We are Homo sapiens. We are all the same species, but we are all a little different. We marry within our species and have children. We don't need to marry outside of our species to have children. In other words, we don't have to marry a chimpanzee to have kids.

Same with lilies. All Lilium speciosum, for instance, are the same species, but they are all a little different (even if they may seem the same to us). They "marry" each other and have kids (seeds), too. It's not ever a problem, and in fact it is nature's preferred method of procreation, compared to hybrids.

So yes, just like humans, where children from the same parents are different, so it is with lilies.

ok I get it.......

I just thought in the lily world when they same they come true from seed that they would all look identical to the mother
but guess not
does that really mean a variance in color and such too
I can see where all the regale might look like regales but will some have a darker purple tinge around the flower??

this is really getting in to the genetics..

in humans we can not have triploids and in some lilies that happens........so some of things I am just kinda learning...
in fact not sure how a triploid in lilies happens with the way that nature works

Yes, humans and lilies are a lot the same, but a lot different, too.

Coming true from seed means the basic genetics stay the same, but differences will be present. Again, looking a the big picture scenario, we humans see each of ourselves as vastly different people, but we look at a species, dolphins, for instance, and they all look the same. But to a dolphin, each can easily tell one from another. So it is with lily species (or any other species in nature): there are a lot of differences that we (not being that species) don't see.