LILY

Description

Classic, stylish, elegant. So universally admired that the word “lily” has been used as a generic name for flowers of all kinds (“lilies of the field,” for example), and the word also names dozens of other flowers that aren’t even in the same plant family (Calla, Peruvian, African and water "lilies,” to name a few). Four of the top 20 bestselling cut flowers are lily cultivars, and some cousins of the lily family are even good enough to eat.

Florist lilies all have the characteristic trumpet shape. The lily looks like it has six petals, but botanists classify them as “tepals.” Tepals are petals (in the center) and sepals (which look like petals around the outer edge of the flower) that are all fused to the base (calyx) of a blossom, and sometimes to each other as well, to form a funnel-shaped flower. The tips of each lily’s tepals curl back, away from the six stamens in the center of the blossom. Usually, each stamen is crowned by a pod-shaped, fuzzy, pollen-covered anther. The vivid golden-to-brown pollen is notorious for scattering and staining whatever it touches, including the lily’s own petals. Removing the anthers will stop the mess, without much effect on vase life. 

Florist lilies are grown from bulbs or tissue cultures, and the plants make seeds as well, in a three-chambered pod hidden deep inside the base of the flower.

Lilies bloom in racemes (multiple blossoms on a single stalk), with as few as three and as many as a dozen flowers per stem. Stems are 18–30" (46–76 cm) tall, with flowers 3–5" (7.6–12.7 cm) across. The leaves are long and thin, with parallel veins. Most florist lilies are sold as cut flowers, except Easter lilies (Lilium longiflorum), which are sold as blooming plants. Most florist lilies are grown from four species:

Longiflorum—the classic Easter lily, with large, showy, strongly fragrant white blossoms, blooming up to six per stem. Though it may be used as a cut flower, it is chiefly sold as a flowering plant for the spring Easter season. Its huge blossoms and sweet fragrance also make it a plant breeders’ favorite for hybridizing with oriental and asiatic lilies. 

Oriental hybrids—large, lightly fragrant flowers in whites, and pale to deep rose colors, often with darker pink to burgundy shadings and speckles. They bear fewer flowers per stem than other lilies, and the blossoms are staggered high up around the axis (sides) of the stem rather than bunched together at the tip. Orientals also have broader, more rounded leaves than other lily species. “Stargazer” is the most famous oriental lily cultivar.

Asiatic hybrids—smaller flowers without much fragrance, but in a mind-boggling variety of dazzling colors that includes the whites and pinks of longiflorums and Orientals, plus reds, oranges, yellows and purples; in solid, bicolor, dappled and other patterns. Flowers are more open and star-shaped than other lily varieties, blooming in groups of up to a dozen at the tip of each low-growing stem. The glossy leaves are also thinner and darker than other lilies’.

LA (longiflorum/Asiatic hybrid)—combines Longiflorums’ large, robust blossom structure and extended vase life with the Asiatics’ range of colors and upright blooming habit. Lightly fragrant.

Lily trends change quickly, so new hybrid combinations are being created all the time. Promising cultivars entering the cut flower market include the giant-blossomed, pastel pink LO (longiflorum/Oriental hybrids) the newer, orientally sweet-scented, asiatically brilliantly-colored OA (Oriental/Asiatic hybrid), and the amazingly huge orienpets (OT or Oriental/trumpet hybrids). Double-petaled “rose lilies” are even in commercial production.

Lilies are ethylene sensitive once lily buds are developing and blooming, when exposure can cause flowers to wither and fall off. Lilies do not air-dry well, but may be preserved with silica gel or glycerine.

Colors: Longiflorum flowers are white; Orientals and longiflorum/Oriental (LO) hybrids are all shades and patterns of pink; asiatics and longiflorum/Asiatic (LA) hybrids include deep, bright and pastel shades and patterns of all colors except true blue, black and brown.

Special Care

Choose stems when buds are swelling but not yet open, with color beginning to show on one or two. Be sure the lilies have been pre-treated to guard against ethylene damage. As soon as possible, recut stems (careful—they’re brittle and break easily). Remove any leaves that will fall below the water line, and place in a preservative solution with 3% sugar content to support bud maturation and bloom, plus a fungicide to protect from botrytis infection.

Hydrating at room temperature for an hour or two can revive drooping leaves. Anthers may be removed to prevent pollen stains; this won’t affect the flowers’ longevity.

Store lilies up to five days at 33–35°F (1–2°C), in 90–95% relative humidity.

Fun Facts:

• Among the top 10 bestselling florist flowers worldwide.

• Lilies are used as the 30th wedding anniversary flower.

• Birth month flower for May.

• One of the most often-tattooed flowers.

• It’s been a sacred plant to humans since the Stone Age, symbolizing everything from innocence to divinity to death; used as living adornment and timeless art. So many ancient cultures associate the lily with female divinity that it may as well be called the “goddess flower.”

• Lilies are shown in 3,500-year-old Minoan vases and frescoes (murals) from ancient Crete.

• The name lily comes from the Greek word "leírion," which means white and pure.

• A Greek myth tells of the first lilies appearing when Zeus, king of the gods, tried to amp up the divine powers in his half-human love child, Hercules, by sneaking the baby to nurse from the sleeping breast of Zeus’ queen-goddess wife, Hera. When Hera woke up and wised up, she angrily tossed baby Hercules across the sky, with her milk streaming after him to become the Milky Way. The drops which fell to earth became lilies, a self-renewing reminder to humans of Hera, the goddess of earth, moon, women, marriage and childbirth.

• To the Romans, lilies symbolized their own queen goddess, Juno, who also ruled marriage and motherhood, as well as the light and the heavens.

• The lily has a starring role as an icon for divine mother-love in the Christian tradition as well. (Starting to see a pattern here?) The ancient, white-blossomed lily species which was treasured by older civilizations was adopted into Christianity as the Madonna lily. It represented the Virgin Mary and her “white without and golden within” purity of body and radiance of spirit.

• Medieval and Renaissance art often uses lilies to represent Mary. She is frequently shown holding or near one or more of the white blossoms. Sometimes angels are shown with lilies, especially in scenes of the Annunciation, where the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would bear a divine child.

• Another legend tells of lilies springing from the Eve’s tears as she was driven from the Garden of Eden.

• Lilies also symbolize the resurrection of Jesus, and, by extension, his followers, which is the basis for lilies’ popularity as funeral flowers.

• The fleur-de-lis has been a symbol of prestige and leadership for centuries, from European royalty to the Catholic Church to the Boy Scouts. Historians are divided as to exactly what flower it depicts, however. The ancient Frank kings came from Flanders (now Belgium), where yellow irises thrived near a river named Leie. When those early French royals relocated to the central part of France, the tri-tipped flower icon they brought on their coats of arms may have been the fleur-de-lis (“flower of the lily”), or it actually may have been the sound-alike fleur-de-leie (“flower of the Leie river”), which was, in fact, an iris.

• The early Catholic Church adopted the stylized fleur-des-lis as a holy symbol as early as the year 800, when Pope Leo III crowned the emperor Charlemagne and gave him a blue banner emblazoned with gold fleurs-de-lis as a coronation gift.

• 17th century European healers made lily poultices and liniments to treat wounds, snake bites and stiff muscles.

• A Victorian favorite, lilies were used as hair ornaments, corsages and props for photographs.

• Lily extracts have been a cosmetics mainstay since antiquity. The aroma of the oldest species of lily, compared to “sweetest frankincense” in the early Catholic Church, has enchanted many cultures, both as a fresh fragrance source and as a perfume ingredient. Lily oil is also reported to sooth and soften the skin.

• Some species of lily (most notably Lilium lancifolium, the tiger lily) are edible, and the bulbs are a common cooking ingredient in Asia (it’s said they taste like turnips). However, florist lilies are not so pleasant if eaten, either to the taste buds or the digestive system. In fact, they are downright deadly to cats—even licking a sprinkling of lily pollen off their paws can cause cats’ kidneys to fail.

• Removing the lily’s anthers can stop the flower’s famous pollen mayhem before it starts. Whisk away fallen pollen by patting a strip of tape over the grains, gently brushing with a soft brush, or using computer cleaning tools to vacuum or blow the pollen away, especially from the inside petals. Never rub or scrape the pollen or it will spread and stain.

• Certain species of lily are pollinated by wind.

• Lilies’ many sword-shaped leaves grow all along the stalk and point straight out, staggered with geometric precision so that no leaf shades the one below it and each gets maximum light exposure.

• The lily family tree isn’t as big as we once thought. Phylogenetics, or the study of evolution through genes, has opened a whole new world in taxonomy (the classification of living things). As a result, many plant families have been reclassified and subdivided into more accurate groupings. While earlier botanical experts with less sophisticated tools grouped over 100 genera in the lily family, including species like onion, aloe and asparagus, the newer genetic studies divide them into different, smaller families. The latest 2016 data places just 15 genera and 705 species in the Liliaceae family.

• In the Victorian “Language of Flowers,” lilies symbolize beauty. Individual colors and cultivars also have specific meanings.

• A member of the Liliaceae (lily) family, lilies are related to the tulip, Fritillaria and the many other lily cultivars.