Flora of North America species comparison

Subspecies 2 (2 in the flora).

Lilium humboldtii is declining throughout its range due to habitat destruction, primarily for housing. Forming large scattered colonies at foothill elevations under ponderosa pines or in oak canyons and chaparral, these massive plants with towering inflorescences and large flowers are quite striking. With Lilium pardalinum and L. parryi, they were used in the early part of the century to produce the Bellingham hybrid lilies, development of which continued with the Bellmaid hybrids. Though not as popular as various Asiatic hybrids, these are still in use.

A. M. Kellogg was aware as early as 1859 that the tall, orange-flowered, dry-land lily from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada was distinctive, and he presented this opinion to the California Academy of Sciences about that time (A. M. Kellogg 1872). By the time he had published a description attached to the name Lilium bloomerianum, P. E. S. Duchartre had described this same plant from material provided by B. Roezl and grown by M. Leichtlin, and named it after the German explorer and botanist Alexander von Humboldt. Carl Purdy and others then misapplied Kellogg’s name in various combinations to the southern California expression recognized here as Lilium humboldtii subsp. ocellatum.

The Humboldt lily is pollinated primarily by large butterflies, especially western tiger swallowtails (Papilio rutulus Lucas, family Papilionidae) and pale swallowtails (P. eurymedon Lucas), and to a lesser extent by the monarch butterfly [Danaus plexippus (Linnaeus), family Nymphalidae].

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

M. L. Fernald (1943e) proposed the variety editorum to account for the more montane plants with wide leaves (2–5 times longer than wide vs. 5–10 in var. canadense), red flowers with slender and elongate tubes with perianth parts arching near or above the middle but not recurved, and narrow petals (0.8–1.3 cm in dried material). Others, including E. T. Wherry (1946) and C. A. Best (1962), sought to characterize the variation better at the subspecific level, and placed more emphasis on ecological differences. In practice, most botanists who recognize var. editorum (e.g., R. M. Adams and W. J. Dress 1982) rely on flower color to designate the varieties, since other characters emerge as quite variable.

Field observations do not strongly support infraspecific splitting of Lilium canadense. Flower color varies widely, and various color forms—usually yellow and orange—are found within single populations in Massachusetts and elsewhere. As interpreted by Adams and Dress, the distributions of the proposed varieties overlap widely, and morphological evidence also offers little support. Leaves 2–10 times longer than wide occur within a sample of plants from Ohio and Alabama that is clearly referable to subsp. editorum in the sense of Adams and Dress, and in these plants the floral tube is wider than that of Massachusetts plants assignable to the nominate variety. Petal widths (fresh material) are 1.2–2 cm. In short, the increasingly refined attempts of the last 60 years to suitably characterize variation in this species suggest that is quite difficult or impossible to do so.

Though no specimens were seen, a report of Lilium canadense from Ashley County in extreme southeastern Arkansas is quite likely to represent L. superbum.

Field observations across the range of the species indicate that the Canada lily is pollinated primarily by ruby-throated hummingbirds [Archilochus colubris (Linnaeus), family Trochilidae].

Native Americans used Lilium canadense medicinally to treat irregular menstruation, stomach disorders, rheumatism, and snake bites. The Cherokee prepared a decoction of boiled rhizomes to fatten children (D. E. Moerman 1986).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)