Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/477

LILY 471 was purchased with avidity, and was continued for many years. He was consulted both by the royalists and parliamentarians in the civil war. In 1651 he published u Monarchy or no Mon- archy," containing several hieroglyphical fig- ures, two of which were subsequently declared to have had reference to the plague and the great fire in London, and he was consequently summoned in 1666 before a committee of the house of commons. He afterward practised medicine in connection with his astrological science, till he was enfeebled by age. He pub- lished an autobiography (London, 1715), an "Introduction to Astrology" (new edition, with emendations and additions by Zadkiel, London, 1852), and other works. LILY, a word of ancient and uncertain ori- gin, and one which has, according to Prior, been long used in some oriental languages for a flower in general. In common use it is often applied in combination to plants which are not botanically lilies, either to those of the same family, as the day lily (hemerocattis), or to plants widely separated in their botanical re- lationships, as water lily (nymphcea). The lily proper (lilium) is the type of a large fam- ily of monocotyledonous plants, the liliacew, as to the limits of which botanists are not agreed ; some include the melanthacece, asparagece, &c., while others keep these as distinct orders. The genus lilium includes plants with scaly bulbs, from which arise simple leafy stems, bearing at the top one to many large showy flowers ; the stem leaves are alternate or whorled, short and sessile ; some species bear small bulblets in the axils of the leaves, which when mature fall to the ground and take root. The flower con- sists of six petal-like divisions or sepals, which are distinct or partly united below, and spread- ing or recurved above, forming a funnel-shaped or bell-shaped perianth, each of the divisions having a honey-bearing furrow at the base; stamens six, the lower end of the long fila- ments slightly adhering to the base of the corolla ; anthers linear, erect, at length ver- satile; pistil one, with a three-celled ovary, a long style, and a three-loTbed stigma; fruit a three-celled dehiscent capsule, with two rows of flattened seeds, closely packed in each cell. Five native species of lily are found east of the Mississippi, and several are peculiar to the Pacific coast. The commonest of these is the wild yellow lily, L. Canadense, which is found in moist meadows from Canada to Georgia ; the sepals are sessile, recurved above the mid- dle, orange-colored, and spotted inside with dark brown. The orange-red lily, L. Phila- delphicum, has darker-colored spotted flowers, grows in drier situations, and is readily dis- tinguished from the preceding by having the sepals contracted below into a claw, and the flowers are more erect. The southern red lily, L. Catesbmi, has its sepals similarly nar- rowed below, and bears a solitary scarlet flow- er which is spotted within ; this is found in pine barrens from Florida to Kentucky. The most showy eastern species is the Turk's-cap lily, L. superbum, which is not rare in rich moist ground as far south as Georgia; the stem is from 3 to 8 ft. high, sometimes pro- ducing only 3 or 4 flowers, but often as many as 30 or 40, in a large pyramidal raceme ; the sepals are strongly revolute on the margin, of a fine orange or orange-red color, with abun- dant purple spots; this magnificent plant is well worthy of cultivation, and though it is seldom seen in our gardens, large quantities of bulbs are sent abroad to supply those of Europe. In the southernmost states L. superlum is re- placed by L. Carolinianum, which differs from it in its broader leaves, and fewer flowers more variegated with yellow ; some botanists regard it as only a variety of L. superbum. The most noticeable lily of the far west is L. WasJiing- tonianum of the sierras, which bears numerous pendulous flowers, at first pure white, but afterward tinged with lilac, and of the most exquisite odor ; this species has been brought into cultivation, as have L. Humboldtii, with yellow, dark-spotted flowers, and L. Bloomeri- anum, a recently discovered species, with stems 10 ft. high, and orange purple-spotted flowers. Among the many exotic species cultivated in gardens, the oldest and best known is the white lily, L. candidum, which was brought from the Levant some three centuries ago, as Gerarde in 1596 speaks of it as an old garden plant ; this is the lily of poets and painters, and has long been regarded as the emblem of purity; in beauty, grace, and fragrance it is not excelled by more recent introductions. A variety has flowers marked with purplish red, and another has its leaves striped with yellow ; The Long-flowered Lily (Lilium longiflorum). what is called the double white is a curious but inelegant monstrosity. The other white lilies of the garden are of more recent intro- duction. L. longiflorum, from Japan, is from 15 to 20 in. high, with one to three funnel- shaped flowers, 5 to 6 in. long and of exquisite