Habitat: sun or part shade
Soil: good garden soil
Height: 1.3 m
Flowering: mid to late summer
Width: 25 cm
Here are all the lilies that are grown as true species, not hybrids, although they include selected forms. They range from tall plants to small alpines, with trumpet, recurved, cup-shaped and open flowers in a huge range of colours. They are good garden plants, although some require more care than others.
Lilium regale 'Album' is very like the standard form of this species, but with pure white flowers. The large, trumpet-shaped flowers are very fragrant.|
| Lilium hansonii is a tall lily with loose whorls of flowers that are yellow to orangey yellow with tan coloured dots in the throat. | |
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| Lilium lancifolium 'Flore Pleno' SDR3805 is a first class and vigorous Turk's-cap lily with deep orange-red flowers with black spots. It can have 20 or 30 flowers on each stem, and produces lots of small bulbs in the leaf axils, which grow to flowering size in about three years. | |
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| Lilium mackliniae is an outstandingly beautiful small lily from the mountains of northern India, near the border with Burma. Each stem carries a few flowers, open bowls hanging slightly downwards, white or very pale pink inside and flushed reddish purple outside. It was originally collected by Frank Kingdon Ward, and was named after his second wife, Jean Macklin. (Incidentally, Primula florindae was named after his first wife, and his daughter was named after a plant - Pleione.) | |
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| Lilium martagon is the classic turk's-cap lily, rare in Britain but widespread and reasonably common in Europe, and sometimes found in huge numbers. The stems can carry up to 50 flowers (although 10 to 30 is more usual), each with strongly reflexed petals, rich pink with many maroon spots. | |
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| Lilium martagon var. album is a form of the classic turk's-cap lily, with its characteristic reflexed petals, which is usually pink, with maroon spots. In this variety they are white, flushed green at the base of the petals, completely unspotted, and with bright golden yellow stamens. There can be 10, or up to 20 or 30 flowers on a stem, each hanging elegantly downwards. | |
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| Lilium pyrenaicum is a lovely and easy lily for an open site in the garden, with yellow flowers, heavily spotted dark red, of the typical 'turk's cap' type, with strongly recurved petals. | |
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| Lilium pyrenaicum subsp. carniolicum is sometimes given status as a species of its own, and sometimes treated as a sub-species of yellow-flowered Lilium pyrenaicum. It is a lovely and easy lily for an open site in the garden. Its flowers are orange to red rather than yellow, of the typical 'turk's cap' type, with strongly recurved petals. | |
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| Lilium regale produces very fragrant, large, trumpet-shaped white flowers that are flushed purple on the outside of the petals and have yellow centres. |