Surprise

July 25th, 2003 brought us this surprise! We have absolutely no idea what variety of Oriental Hybrid this is! Hopefully a bit of sleuthing will eventually give us the answer.

Earlier this year Waita got some Lily bulbs out of a bin at the Richmond City Works Yard that where sorta identified with a couple of pictures, but in reality all she had to choose from was light coloured and dark coloured bulbs. We believe this one comes from that lot and according to Waita it bears no resemblance to either of the 2 pictures that were on the bin, so we have absolutely no idea of what it is:) Whatever it is, I think you'll agree it is unique and quite pretty.

Having done a fair bit of searching of various Lily breeder sites, we think this may be a so-called 'O.T.' or 'Orienpet' (for Oriental/Trumpet) by the name of 'Touch', at least on one site. Look for 'Touch' or 'Touching' on another and you get something very different. Or perhaps 'Sonora', it's all very confusing. 'Touch' is a little more vivid in it's yellow than 'Sonora' and we may well have the latter, rather than the former.

There's a picture on the Mondial website of an OT called 'Zagora' that is rather reminiscent of what we show here. On the same site, in the same category, we also see 'Shocking', another one that bears resemblance. The more I look at the various possibilities the more I tend to favour 'Shocking' as being the correct name for this variety, judging by the general shape of the petals, the colour and size of the nectaries etc. The picture on the Canadian Lilynook site does not have as bright or dark a yellow on the same variety and looks therefor much more like what we saw in late summer 2003. So, the mystery continues. One thing is becoming a little clearer to me though and that is what kind of hybrid it likely is: an 'OT/Orienpet'; having gone through Mondial's very extensive listing of 'Orientals' there is nothing among those that looks even remotely like what we have.

A little later that year, on my birthday to be exact (September 1st) we had yet another unidentified lily in bloom. Unlike the one above, this one had only one bloom this year. We'll keep an eye on it next year, probably transplant it to a different location.

Both of these lilies would appear to be giving us extra shoots for 2004. Judging from where they were planted in 2003, we can see a fair number of bulbs with more than just one shoot popping up in March 2004. The same goes for the 2 varieties of Trumpet lilies we have in the same planter. With all the different varieties we now have (by the time we're done planting for 2004 it will be close to 30) it is becoming obvious to us we have to start identifying each variety as they bloom with a piece of gardener's tape so that when we go to dig over the planters and add compost in the fall we will be in a position to have ID sticks with each and every bulb for when they come up next year and to allow us to pot up the excess bulbs and sell them with confidence as to their variety come next spring.

Well, 2 years later, in July of 2005, this is what we now see out of this bulb. It's much richer in colour, almost apricot and we absolutely no idea from where we got, though I suspect it was the city works yard, let alone what variety it is.

One thing is quite clear to me though and that is the likelyhood of these three varieties sharing common ancestry, most likely L. Henryi.

This one grows in the north yard and shares the planter with 2 other ones that are mostly downward facing, again no clue as to their names, although some have suggested a couple of possibilities for those.

This one here, one of the subjects in our 'Tale of two lilies' is probably a L. Henryi cultivar, likely the so-called 'White Henryi'. On the Gardenweb link it suggests that "White Henryi' is a '10' for fragrance, but they're the only ones to make that claim; ours appears to have no scent at all.

It has been suggested that this may well be 'Lady Alice'. No doubt this one and the one above have common ancestry.