Lilium formosanum and phillipinense

pard, I'd love to send you some of our rain. I've been riding in it for 3 days now trying to get my horse ready for his first competitive trail. He's ready but I don't think I ever will be!

Well, just glancing at all that was said above I probably do have formosum since the pollen color on mine is yellow. I have to get up pretty early to beat the bees to the pollen. On a sunny morning they will have all the pollen stripped by 8 am.

Pard, your a wealth of USABLE knowledge. Thank you, and have fun with your other loves.

lilyfan, I wonder if your bees are getting to the pollen before it 'dries", and would turn color (if it is going to). Pick a stamen in the early, early morning and before the bees and bring it inside. See what the color matures to.

Relative to my other fall flowers, I have very little insect activity on my lilies. I am just happy that the honey bees are back. Last year I had almost none, but still had lots of activity with the bumble bees, wasps and other assorted insects.

I must retract a statement as I can now say without a doubt that there is some blue on my phillipinense stigmas. My only defense is that when I looked before, it was a dismal day and late in the evening. But I no longer have any formosanum stigmas for comparison. They are all spent.

I think an informal poll would be interesting. Could we all chime in (especially lilyfan with your philly) with either species, check their stigmas (in good light), and see if they have any blue tinting? The stigma is the end of the pistol ( the female "stick" in the center of the flower). Check especially on newly opened flowers as Pard mentions the color can fade.

My first L phillly is about to open, possibly tomorrow. I can see the white showing through, and the buds have developed some interesting brownish green striping.

I will take some close detail pics and keep you informed. My seed came from an ebay seller from your side. I have 4 plants with a bud on, the others I think won't make it this year.

You can see it in this pic I took yesteday, it's fatter today but I didn't take a pic. The camera was busy doing other things!

It's to the right of the datura

It has opemed, and the stigma is a pale blue.

Ohhh, pretty!!

The outside, you can see my fingers in the pic giving an idea of the size.

OMG that is just fabulous!



Reminds me of this one, the way it's hanging: http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/images/unknown/Lilium_wenshanense2.jpg

Ronert. (LOL)

Robert. edited to prove (to myself) I can rite my name crekkly.



This message was edited Sep 14, 2006 10:17 PM

I think the camera angle makes it look longer! It is long though, in daylight I will have to measure it.

It is pretty!

It's probably about 30" tall

I liked the looks of L wenshanense too, it is similar.

How about this, you can see the stigma side view

I think I'm developing a thing for Trumpet lilies!

This year I added 'Pink Perfection' (but only 1 of five bulbs was actually PP) and a Regal lily to go with my "curly formosas". The scent of all those is wonderful when it wafts through!

I put in five L. candidums last week and they're already growing well. There were lots of loose scales and I tucked those in as well. From what I hear, Madonna lilies are super easy to increase by scales.

Now I'm going to have to add philippense and wenshanense too it seems......

Robert.

Looks like yours has more green on the inside then mine, and of course there is the brown outside too. I like the green (and the brown), but I am glade mine are more distinctive from formosanum without the brown. But I like the green and brown together . . . can't make up my mind. A wonderful trumpet, Wallaby, no matter what!

As for the blue, is it on the entire surface of the stigma? Mine just showed blue as it faded in to the center. However that may be because the flower was already days old when I finally noticed (idiot). Remember Pard said that the blue tends to fade with age.

The length and size of the two species' flowers I have were the same, as was the aspect (as you could see from the photos). One thing I did notice, which is probably just specific to my individual plants, is that formosanum's top tetals (especially the topmost) curled slightly less then the lower counterparts, and made the upper tetals seem longer. Just like the illusion produced in Wallaby's downfacing flower photo. My phillipinense's showed no such tendency, and flower tepals were perfectly simetrical.

The stigma is all blue to my eye, a very soft almost greyish blue and it has a softly bumpy surface, not fuzzy but, gee I don't know how to describe it.

On cropping it down I can see a fine greenish/brown line down the middle of each lobe, and I thought there was a greenish hue visible in the pic around the back edges, which I had put down to reflection of the throat. It could be a greenish rim (at the back) but the whole stigma looks blue to me. That may change with age, but I won't see this one because I plastered it with gloriosoides pollen! The last 2 had opened 3 days earlier and I took more pollen off, then just used a whole anther to do it, the pollen was still full and fluffy, it's amazing how much came off. The anthers of philly are showing loose pollen today, perhaps I should take some of those for another cross next year!

The next one to open has much darker brown stripes on the pod, it's getting fat so shouldn't be long. The other two are only small, might not make it.

I took some more pics today of the curves, it was only just open when I took the other pics, it opened after a shower of rain. They do look even to me. It has it's end protected under an Eriobotrya leaf, I am hoping for seeds! Philly x glory seeds.

Drip . . .

Yup, same tint of blue as mine.

Gosh, if that cross worked, growing on the progeny would be fraught with excruciating anticipation. Are you up to it? Good luck times a hundred! Iit's going to be a tough one.

I feel lucky! I like excitement, anticipation is life itself!

If it does make seed I won't know what they are until grown to flowering, and if they turn out to be philly then that will 'only' be 2 years. Perhaps I should help it with it's own pollen just in case!

Just thinking, if both pollens are present they may get to work and hybridise the pollen then fertilise the flower, who knows? Probably not 'scientifically' possible, but science knows only what man has learnt. Nature has been hybridising forever, natural crosses, evolution. If man doesn't understand it then according to man it doesn't exist.

I go with nature and 'her' endless possibilities. She is tough.

Just caught that drip! There was an inspirational explosion, brainstorming, the drip landed and splattered to all corners of my mind!

I think that was a top view of the curves,

this is the side

This is the other bud, a bit blurred but you can see the heavy brown stripes. It catches the evening sun more, that could be the reason.

Measuring at 7.5"

Yum! Love those swarthy tepal-backs!

Here's a little hybridizer's trick to help make certain difficult crosses "easier".

Take the pollen of a known compatible donor and place around the outer rim of the pistil. This will open up the tubules to accept the pollen. Now take the 'iffy' (ie. from a different genus) pollen and put it in the center area of the pistil. Hopefully the other pollen can get past the barrier opened by the other pollen.

I have heard of a stray 'iffy' grain slipping in with the compatible one through the same opening.

Robert.

You are full of little tid bits of tricks, that sounds like a good one to me! It's own pollen is behind it anyway, so.............I'm hopeful!

Anyone else had a Lphilippinense open?

My second one opened over 3 days ago. It has a more bulbous middle, so the petals don't lie the same, and of course it has a much darker striping.

Strange thing is, the stigma is blue, pollen is .......YELLOW! Do I have a cross here? Looks like it! The stigma when enlarged in a pic can be seen to have a lighter whitish circle around the middle, where the philly had pale green lines down the centres of the lobes. I don't see green lines on this one.

The full shot

What amuses me is the way the stripe which joins the outer and inner petals does actually JOIN them, look at the groove which the outer petals fit into.

This is the first one

What a curious thing. I've never seen anything like that before.

Blue and yellow go quite nicely with each other. Complementary. I like it!

I've plastered pollen from the first one over the second one, who knows what may happen! I would like to know if anyone has seen this combination before, it must be a cross between the two, or perhaps some other influence. Maybe self hybridised????

Don't know about said combo. But this is all interesting. The bulbous feature of your second philly seems most atypical for either species, and longiflorum too(all closely related). Still I just don't know enough to know if there are legitamate forms of phillipinense or formosanum (or longiflorum) with said characteristic. A shot in the dark says there is some foreign parentage in that one, unless it could be possibly be environmentally caused?

They're only a few feet apart, the 2nd one may be slightly drier as it's under the edge of an oak tree. I doubt that would make this difference. The seed was from an ebay seller, she supposedly sold seed from her and possibly her friend's own gardens, but is a regular seller

The 3rd one was part open today. It's bulbous but more towards the bottom. The stigma is blue, it looked to be fuzzy and the expanded pic shows this, nothing else unusual. Pollen is YELLOW. It seemed to come to maturity more quickly than the others, the season is changing so perhaps in a hurry to mature. Very little striping, and the petals look to have a crepe effect, visible from the pic of the inside. The 4th one is in a hurry to open too, it looks much smaller.

That lost a few pixels in transit so doesn't show it very well!

The whole plant #3, it's a little fuzzy but the wind was blowing it around.

Try a bigger pic of the centre

Still not good, it's not a small crop so I'm surprised, quite good on my picture screen.

Another possible difference between the two species:

It's been a while, but I think Wallaby mentioned the nubs on the end of the phillipinense seed pod.
It is on mine too:

But not on my formosanum (below), even at the beginning of its life.
I can't say the fatness has anything to do with it, because the two pods are different ages. The striping, well, that was early on, but I wouldn't be surprised if that is as variable as the striping on the flowers.

So whatdya think? Maybe . . . . . maybe not. I (we) will have to check it out next year too.

Rick

Hmm, interesting! Your philipp. looks just like mine, the second not.

My second one has made a pod, but is still at an angle. The 3rd one is about to lose it's petals, the 4th is close to opening and looks like the last ones with heavier striping and a bigger bulge.

I will have to check the 2nd one closely tomorrow, dark now! I think it looks like the first though.

Well, I think I may have the answer to my first L philippiense, the one with the straighter trumpet and mahogany-brown pollen.

Take a look at L poilanei on rareplants. You can't enlarge the pic, but from what I can see and the description of it I am nearly 100% sure that this is it, from a location in Vietnam. Note that they say the red and yellow forms seen are to his estimation not the true forms.

http://shop.rareplants.co.uk/prodtype.asp?PT_ID=114&numRecordPosition=16&ph=cat&strKeywords=&&strSearchCriteria=

The 4th one has opened and it looks like #2 and #3, being bulged in the trumpet and with yellow pollen. Now I'm not certain what they are either! They all have the reddish brown striping, shape more bulged, blue stigma and yellow pollen. Can these be a cross with #1 and something else?

Oh, pardalinum, you are going to hate me for this, but they have L majoense, and I have bought one! I will see what it looks like when I get it, I may be able to take a scale (or two). I have had their catalogue for 3 months and didn't get around to looking at it, I ended up on their site yesterday (funny a search didn't reveal it). I also bought L nanum Butan, L pyrenaicum, L rosthornii, and L xanthellum luteum. £47.50 in total, that's what a rainy day can do to you! Oh well, thank the gods for those pieces of plastic!

The poilanei @ rareplants is a beauty. Love those tightly curled tepals. Looks like they're a almost a full circle.

A good rainy day, sounds like. I think you did well if you didn't spring for another poilanei, just for reference, you know.......

Robert.

Deep breaths, Wallaby. I can hear the excitement in your words. I thought this whole thing was tangled enough with just phillipinense, formosanum and longiflorum. But now you had to add poilanei now, didn't you.

The species is not listeted in The Genus Lilium http://www.the-genus-lilium.com/alphabetic_list.htm, but it is in De Florum http://www.deflorum.com/species/poilanei.html, and then, and then, and then . . .

Ya know, for some first year flowers that may or may not be the same as mature ones that would obviously be needed for ID, we sure are putting a lot of effort into this. But it is fun.

gee raydio, you know it was difficult to pass it by! I WAS going to buy one, but told myself that it DOES look like the one I have, so restrained myself and bought another different one!

Leftwood, oh yes excitement here! It DOES look like it, but I got so excited it took me a while to realise that! I just wish I could see a bigger pic of it!

OK, time is needed. BUT.............

Your links are not doing anything, but I can put in the sites. Loadsa fun!

Hmmmmmmmmmmm!

It does have lanceolate leaves, difficult to see them on that pic. It does have red on the outside, it does have green on the inside, looks like striping, but so does mine!

http://www.deflorum.com/species/poilanei.html

Oh heck, I can still order one before it's dispatched, just add £0.50 extra for their costs...... should I?????

yes.....