A Study of Maternal Inheritance in Lilium regale, Wils

Abstract

Since it first flowered in cultivation in 1905, Lilium regale has attracted the attention of hybridisers with is easy growth and magnificent appearance. No other Lilium is so suited for a parent, and yet few claims of hybrids with L. regale female parentage have appeared. Lilium regale does not seed without pollination, but maybe successfully pollinated with its own pollen or that of several other species. The progeny all appear identical with L. regale irrespective of the pollen parent. As Tuffery puts it, he has had "seed set from pollen of Ll, parryi, auratum, bakerianium, umbellatum, candidum and henryi, as well as all the various "trumpets" on regale, but no hybrids…. In all I must have raised close on half a million seedlings from these crossings … it was only a waste of time sowing and then transplanting thousands of seedlings."