quite distinct botanically. Thus, the Lent lily is Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus;
the African lily is Agapanthus umbellatus; the Belladonna
lily is Amaryllis Belladonna (q.v.); the Jacobaea lily is Sprekelia
formosissima; the Mariposa lily is Calochortus; the lily of the Incas
is Alstroemeria pelegrina; St Bernard’s lily is Anthericum Liliago;
St Bruno’s lily is Anthericum (or Paradisia) Liliastrum; the water
lily is Nymphaea alba; the Arum lily is Richardia africana; and
there are many others.
The true lilies are so numerous and varied that no general cultural instructions will be alike suitable to all. Some species, as L. Martagon, candidum, chalcedonicum, Szovitzianum (or colchicum), bulbiferum, croceum, Henryi, pomponium—the “Turk’s cap lily,” and others, will grow in almost any good garden soil, and succeed admirably in loam of a rather heavy character, and dislike too much peat. But a compost of peat, loam and leaf-soil suits L. auratum, Brownii, concolor, elegans, giganteum, japonicum, longiflorum, monadelphum, pardalinum, speciosum, and the tiger lily (L. tigrinum) well, and a larger proportion of peat is indispensable for the beautiful American L. superbum and canadense. The margin of rhododendron beds, where there are sheltered recesses amongst the plants, suits many of the more delicate species well, partial shade and shelter of some kind being essential. The bulbs should be planted from 6 to 10 in. (according to size) below the surface, which should at once be mulched over with half-decayed leaves or coconut fibre to keep out frost.
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Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis). About 14 nat. size.
The noble L. auratum, with its large white flowers, having a yellow band and numerous red or purple spots, is a magnificent plant when grown to perfection; and so are the varieties called rubro-vittatum and cruentum, which have the central band crimson instead of yellow; and the broad-petalled platyphyllum, and its almost pure white sub-variety called virginale. Of L. speciosum (well known to most gardeners as lancifolium), the true typical form and the red-spotted and white varieties are grand plants for late summer blooming in the conservatory. The tiger lily, L. tigrinum, and its varieties Fortunei, splendidum and flore-pleno, are amongst the best species for the flower garden; L. Thunbergianum and its many varieties being also good border flowers. The pretty L. Leichtlinii and L. colchicum (or Szovitsianum) with drooping yellow flowers and the scarlet drooping-flowered L. tenuifolium make up, with those already mentioned, a series of the finest hardy flowers of the summer garden. The Indian L. giganteum is perfectly distinct in character, having broad heart-shaped leaves, and a noble stem 10 to 14 ft. high, bearing a dozen or more large deflexed, funnel-shaped, white, purple-stained flowers; L. cordifolium (China and Japan) is similar in character, but dwarfer in habit.
For pot culture, the soil should consist of three parts turfy loam to one of leaf-mould and thoroughly rotted manure, adding enough pure grit to keep the compost porous. If leaf-mould is not at hand, turfy peat may be substituted for it. The plants should be potted in October. The pots should be plunged in a cold frame and protected from frost, and about May may be removed to a sheltered and moderately shady place out-doors to remain till they flower, when they may be removed to the greenhouse. This treatment suits the gorgeous L. auratum, the splendid varieties of L. speciosum (lancifolium) and also the chaste-flowering trumpet-tubed L. longiflorum and its varieties. Thousands of bulbs of such lilies as longiflorum and speciosum are now retarded in refrigerators and taken out in batches for greenhouse work as required.
Diseases.—Lilies are, under certain conditions favourable to the development of the disease, liable to the attacks of three parasitic fungi. The most destructive is Botrytis cinerea which forms orange-brown or buff specks on the stems, pedicels, leaves and flower-buds, which increase in size and become covered with a delicate grey mould, completely destroying or disfiguring the parts attacked. The spores formed on the delicate grey mould are carried during the summer from one plant to another, thus spreading the disease, and also germinate in the soil where the fungus may remain passive during the winter producing a new crop of spores next spring, or sometimes attacking the scales of the bulbs forming small black hard bodies embedded in the flesh. For prevention, the surface soil covering bulbs should be removed every autumn and replaced by soil mixed with kainit; manure for mulching should also be mixed with kainit, which acts as a steriliser. If the fungus appears on the foliage spray with potassium sulphide solution (2 oz. in 3 gallons of water). Uromyces Erythronii, a rust, sometimes causes considerable injury to the foliage of species of Lilium and other bulbous plants, forming large discoloured blotches on the leaves. The diseased stems should be removed and burned before the leaves fall; as the bulb is not attacked the plant will start growth next season free from disease. Rhizopus necans is sometimes the cause of extensive destruction of bulbs. The fungus attacks injured roots and afterwards passes into the bulb which becomes brown and finally rots. The fungus hibernates in the soil and enters through broken or injured roots, hence care should be taken when removing the bulbs that the roots are injured as little as possible. An excellent packing material for dormant buds is coarsely crushed wood-charcoal to which has been added a sprinkling of flowers of sulphur. This prevents infection from outside and also destroys any spores or fungus mycelium that may have been packed away along with the bulbs.
When cultivated in greenhouses liliums are subject to attack from aphides (green fly) in the early stages of growth. These pests can be kept in check by syringing with nicotine, soft-soap and quassia solutions, or by “vaporising” two or three evenings in succession, afterwards syringing the plants with clear tepid water.
LILYE, or Lily, WILLIAM (c. 1468–1522), English scholar, was born at Odiham in Hampshire. He entered the university of Oxford in 1486, and after graduating in arts went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On his return he put in at Rhodes, which was still occupied by the knights of St John, under whose protection many Greeks had taken refuge after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. He then went on to Italy, where he attended the lectures of Sulpitius Verulanus and Pomponius Laetus at Rome, and of Egnatius at Venice. After his return he settled in London (where he became intimate with Thomas More) as a private teacher of grammar, and is believed to have been the first who taught Greek in that city. In 1510 Colet, dean of St Paul’s, who was then founding the school which afterwards became famous, appointed Lilye the first high master. He died of the plague on the 25th of February 1522.
Lilye is famous not only as one of the pioneers of Greek learning, but as one of the joint-authors of a book, familiar to many generations of students during the 19th century, the old Eton Latin grammar. The Brevissima Institutio, a sketch by Colet, corrected by Erasmus and worked upon by Lilye, contains two portions, the author of which is indisputably Lilye. These are the lines on the genders of nouns, beginning Propria quae maribus, and those on the conjugation of verbs beginning As in praesenti. The Carmen de Moribus bears Lilye’s name in the early editions; but Hearne asserts that it was written by Leland, who was one of his scholars, and that Lilye only adapted it. Besides the Brevissima Institutio, Lilye wrote a variety of Latin pieces both in prose and verse. Some of the latter are printed along with the Latin verses of Sir Thomas More in Progymnasmata Thomae Mori et Gulielmi Lylii Sodalium (1518). Another volume of Latin verse (Antibossicon ad Gulielmum Hormannum, 1521) is directed against a rival schoolmaster and grammarian, Robert Whittington, who had “under the feigned name of Bossus, much provoked Lilye with scoffs and biting verses.”
See the sketch of Lilye’s life by his son George, canon of St Paul’s, written for Paulus Jovius, who was collecting for his history the lives of the learned men of Great Britain; and the article by J. H. Lupton, formerly sur-master of St Paul’s School, in the Dictionary of National Biography.
LIMA, a city and the county-seat of Allen county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Ottawa river, about 70 m. S.S.W. of Toledo, Pop. (1890) 15,981; (1900) 21,723, of whom 1457 were
