Lilium philadelphicum L.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘The Philadelphian Lily was first cultivated in this country by Mr. Philip Miller, in the year 1757, who received roots of it from Mr. John Bartram of Philadelphia, its first discoverer.  Its bulbs are small, white and scaly, and produce each a single stem, somewhat more than a foot high, bearing at the summit two flowers.’  [BM t.519/1801]. 

‘Drawn from a plant in the Nursery of Messrs. Fraser in Sloane Square.  It was brought over by one of the partners, and entered in the annual Catalogue of the Nursery by the name of andinum, proposed by Mr. Nuttall, who had collected the plant in Louisiana, where it is said to be common in moist situations in valleys and at the sides of rivulets from Fort Mandan to the mountains.  We are unable to discover any available distinction between it and the well known philadelphicum.  The flowers of the Louisianian plant are perhaps larger, generally more numerous, of a deeper colour, and the leaves rather shorter and broader.  We have thought it safer to keep the two under the same specific title, assorting to each its particular synonymy below the head of its variety.’  [BR f.594/1822].

According to Grey it has been grown in Europe since 1675.  ‘[It] has always been scarce in this country.’  [LBC no.976/1824].  

History at Camden Park

Listed only in the 1857 catalogue [B.313/1857] but the first reference to this plant is a handwritten entry in a copy of the 1850 catalogue held at the Mitchell Library, inscribed on the front Wm. Macarthur, 23rd Dec. 1854.  [ML 635.9m].

Notes

Lilium philadelphicum Thunb. (1784) = Lilium maculatum Thunb. which see.