Lilium

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Lilium

Description

Erect, usually glabrous herbs. Leaves cauline, alternate or verticillate, linear or broadly flattened, usually sessile, sometimes with bulbils in their axils. Flowers solitary and terminal, or in a racemose inflorescence of solitary flowers in the axils of the often leaf-like bracts. Ovary superior, sessile, oblong to obovoid, 3-celled; Capsule coriaceous, loculicidal, perianth deciduous. Seeds flat.

Distribution

Asia present, Asia-Temperate: Taiwan (Taiwan present), Asia-Tropical: Philippines (Philippines present), North America present
Widespread with possibly 80 spp. in the temperate regions of North America, Europe and Asia (also Taiwan); in Malesia: Philippines.

Notes

Many species are of horticultural importance.

Citation

Sealy 1950 – In: Kew Bull.: 273
Linne 1754: Gen. Pl., ed. 5: 143
Krause 1930 – In: E. & P., Nat. Pfl. Fam., ed. 2, 15a: 329
Baker 1875 – In: J. Linn. Soc. Bot.: 225
Elwes 1880: Monogr. genus Lilium
Drysdale Woodcock & Stearn 1950: Lilies of the World
Wilson 1925: Lilies of E. Asia
Hutch. 1959 – In: Fam. Fl. Pl., ed. 2: 609