Entry From
Flora of Tropical East Africa, page 1, (2005) Author: John Grimshaw, D. Phil
Names
Lilium formosanum Wallace [family LILIACEAE], in The Garden 40: 442 (1891); Stapf in Bot. Mag. 154: t. 9205 (1930); Price in Gard. Chron. 89: 70 (1931); Grove & Cotton in Suppl. Elwes’ Monogr. Genus Lilium 13, t. 5 (1935); Woodcock & Stearn in Lilies of the World: 219 (1950); Synge, Lilies: 80 (1980); McRae, Lilies: 134 (1998). Type: not located.
Lilium longiflorum Baker var. formosanum [family LILIACEAE], in Gard. Chron. (n.s) 14: 524 (1880)
Lilium philippinense Grove var. formosanum [family LILIACEAE], in Gard. Chron. 70: 63 (1921)
Information
Herb to 200 cm high, evergreen if not too dry, producing a succession of flowering stems, but in East Africa usually producing a solitary stem during the rainy season. Bulb subglobose, 2–4 cm in diameter, white, tinged purple, stoloniferous. Stems usually solitary per bulb, rooting at the base above the bulb, purple-brown, especially below, scaberulous. Leaves numerous, most dense at base of stem, sparser and shorter above, linear to narrowly oblong-lanceolate, 7.5–20x(0.2–)0.4–0.5(–1) cm, 3–7 veined, glabrous, lustrous dark green; upper leaves lanceolate, 2–5 cm long, acute. Flowers usually 1(–2) in Africa, potentially 3–10(–30), borne horizontally, white, narrowly funnel-shaped, the outer whorl of perianth segments suffused brownish-pink externally, fragrant; pedicels erect or ascending, 6–15 cm, with leafy bracts and bracteoles. Perianth segments 12.5–20 cm long, reflexed at apices, outer whorl oblong-oblanceolate 2.5–3 cm wide, narrower at base, inner whorl spathulate, with long claw, limb obovate-lanceolate to 5 cm wide; nectary-furrow narrow, green, papillose-pubescent. Filaments equalling perianth tube, 7–12.5 cm long, flattened, obscurely papillose below; anthers 9–21 mm long, more or less included in perianth, pollen brown or yellow. Ovary lustrous green, cylindric, 5 cm long; style angular, 6–9 cm, thickened and curved upwards below the large, 3-lobed stigma, exceeding anthers. Capsule cylindrical, weakly 6-angled, erect, 7–9x± 2 cm, apex depressed, base stipitate. Seed obovate, thin with a thickened margin, 5 mm long. Fig. 1.
Range
DISTR. K 4; T 2, 3, 5, 7 indigenous and naturally endemic to Taiwan, now naturalized in eastern and southern Africa, Australia (where considered a noxious weed)
Distribution
KENYA North Nyeri District Naro Moru, Dec. 1981, Grey-Wilson s.n. (cultivated Suffolk from seed collected in Kenya)!TANZANIA Lushoto District Jaegertal Hotel Garden, 18 Oct. 1984, Kisena 195!TANZANIA Iringa District Kigogo near old foresters’s house, 9 Mar. 1987, Lovett, Keeley & Niblett 1679!
Notes
Other species of Lilium have been, or may be, cultivated in gardens or for cut flowers in East Africa. Among these are the ‘white lilies’ Lilium longiflorum Thunb. (Easter lily) differing from L. formosanum in its shorter stature, broader leaves and pure white flowers with scarcely reflexed perianth segments, and L. candidum L. (Madonna lily) with broad basal leaves, reduced cauline leaves, and widely spreading pure white perianth segments.