A Lily from the Valley - Michael S. Dosmann - Harvard University
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A Lily from the Valley
Michael S. Dosmann
T
his story is of a flower and the man who I admired them from a vantage point on the
ventured to the other side of the world, narrow, rocky trail below. Most stems reached
away from family and modern conve- straight up to the sky, while others dangled out
nience, to collect it. The plant was not just from the cliffs at near-ninety-degree angles. I
an object of desire but one of such value that was baffled by how they could defy gravity like
it would underwrite the most significant col- that, with so little soil to cling to amidst the
lecting expeditions of the day. Yet, its beauty ever-blowing wind.
almost betrayed the collector, nearly taking his Because of my plant collecting experience in
reputation and his life. It is also a story of their China for the Arnold Arboretum, following in
redemption: the story of Ernest Henry Wilson Wilson’s footsteps, I had been asked to guide
and the regal lily (Lilium regale). viewers for the documentary. The third and
When I first glimpsed regal lilies in the wild, final episode highlighted Wilson’s collection of
in 2014, I was in northern Sichuan Province, Lilium regale and a rockslide that nearly ended
China, to retell Wilson’s story for CCTV’s docu- his life not far from where we filmed that day.
mentary, Chinese Wilson. I recall how gusts The episode was rounded out with narrations
filled the air with sand, as well as a bright of Wilson’s own descriptions of events. That
aroma from lilies, prompting me to simulta- part was easy. Wilson retold the story often, in
neously squint and sniff deeply. Ensembles numerous books and articles, with a dramatic
of the glistening, trumpet-like blossoms dot- flair that would have prompted Mark Twain’s
ted the gray cliffs above the Min River. The praise. Most accounts started with a rehearsed
blooms were sometimes a half-dozen to a stalk, rhetorical question, as it did in “Price of the
predominantly a clear white, with a purplish Regal Lily,” published in Country Gentlemen
blush on the outside and yellow throats within. in October 1925: “How many people know the
DOSMANN, M. S. 2020. A LILY FROM THE VALLEY. ARNOLDIA, 77(3): 14–25
E. H. Wilson and Lilium regale 15 The author (facing page) is photographed for a documentary that recounted Ernest Henry Wilson’s harrowing collec- tion of the regal lily (Lilium regale). The filmmakers orchestrated a reenactment of the mule train that was important to Wilson’s retellings of the story. size of a mule’s hoof?” He then would respond, the mule train approached. Because the path “Frankly I do not know with mathematical between the cliff face and the roaring torrents exactness, but as I lay on the ground and more below was too skinny for them to turn around, than forty of these animals stepped over my the only choice was for Wilson to remain on prostrate form the hoof seemed enormous, blot- the ground and watch as each and every mule ting out my view of the heavens.” How is that stepped over. for an opening line? The explorer went on to What followed was a hastened and painful richly describe the dusty “rude land” south of three-day journey to Chengdu, with Wilson car- Songpan where his “royal lady” grew: “That ried on an improvised stretcher constructed from such a rare jewel should have its home in so the remnants of his chair. Doctors at the Friends remote and arid a region of the world seemed Foreign Mission set his leg as best they could, like a joke on Nature’s part.” but the possibility of amputation persisted for The disaster occurred on September 4, 1910, weeks due to nagging infection. In the end, how- while Wilson was on his fourth expedition ever, his leg—now nearly an inch shorter than to China. “Dysentery in a mild form” had his left—was saved, as were the lilies. During prompted him to ride in the sedan chair, yet he Wilson’s recuperation, members of his team dug noted that “song was in [their] hearts” for they up a quantity of bulbs, which followed Wilson were near Wenchuan and just north of Sich- back to Boston in the spring of 1911. uan’s capital, Chengdu, where good food and Wilson was so proud of the introduction that, accommodation awaited. When the landslide despite the near-death experience and life-long struck, his chair was tossed to the river sev- injury, he stated that the “lily was worth it and eral hundred feet below. Errant boulders left the more.” In his 1925 monograph The Lilies of team scattered, and Wilson’s right leg shattered Eastern Asia, he went even further, proclaiming in two places. Luckily, he never lost conscious- that “in adding it to western gardens the dis- ness, and he instructed his team to use the coverer would proudly rest his reputation with camera tripod to splint his leg. It was then that the Regal Lily.” I concur, this lily is a gem. But PHOTOS, PAGE 14 BY KOU JIN, PAGE 15 BY MICHAEL S. DOSMANN
ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARCHIVES
16 Arnoldia 77/3 • February 2020
Ernest Henry Wilson (right) and zoologist Walter Zappey rest along a footpath in central China in 1908.
Wilson was responsible for introducing over a ger for their (and his) value to be realized? Or,
thousand plants to Western cultivation, includ- was there something more to his statement—
ing scores of horticultural prizes. The ghostly did Wilson really believe his reputation was at
dove tree (Davidia involucrata) haunted his stake and only redeemed by this lily?
dreams on his first expedition for Veitch Nurs-
∫
ery, and the yellow poppywort (Meconopsis Little is written about Wilson’s state of mind
integrifolia) was his muse for the second. He during his days of exploration, and his own
had also introduced his favorite shrub of all correspondence barely sheds light upon such
time—the beautybush (Kolkwitzia amabilis)— things. (Personal letters to his wife, Nellie, were
and the paperbark maple (Acer griseum). Wilson destroyed by the family after the couple’s death
considered the maple, whose namesake bark in 1930.) His journal entries have hardly seen
is loved by connoisseurs everywhere, Hubei’s the light of day due to his near-indecipherable
best. Perhaps these successes didn’t register to penmanship, but one entry stands out beyond
him because another collector sent one dove others, written on September 3, 1910, the
tree seed to France before Wilson managed to day before the landslide. Wilson described his
collect his bundle, and the poppywort proved a stomach trouble, his inability to keep warm,
bit too finicky to cultivate broadly. As for the and the terrible road conditions. He noted the
other two woody plants, maybe it just took lon- abundance of regal lilies (known then as Lilium
E. H. Wilson and the Regal Lily 17
myriophyllum) upon the cliffs and described Franchet in 1892. Much was made of the free-
how, earlier in the day, two members of his flowering plants, with Wilson writing about
team stayed behind in Sian Sou Qiao to inves- the collection that year in Flora and Sylva. In
tigate the region’s conifers and to secure bulbs. 1906, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine profiled the
The final paragraph is the most profound. new-to-cultivation species, complete with a
While a word or two still evade “translation,” beautiful illustration.
Wilson wrote of being in the same area two By the close of 1906, Sargent not only secured
and a half years before. It had rained then, too, Wilson as the Arboretum’s collector in China
and I can imagine the drudgery, even misery, of but found a partner to share some of the
being ill, sopping wet, loaded down with sup- financial burden: John K. M. L. Farquhar. The
plies, and trudging along a dangerous road still Scottish-born nurseryman had established
days away from civilization and convenience. “I R. & J. Farquhar & Co. in 1884. It became one
little thought then I should ever return here!” of the most prominent horticultural businesses
Wilson lamented. “I am certainly getting very in America, operating out of Boston. On Christ-
tired of the wandering life & long for the end to mas Eve of 1906, Sargent wrote to Farquhar,
come. I seem never to have done anything other “Since our conversation of the other day I have
than wander wander through China!” talked over the bulb business with Wilson and
Between 1899 and 1911, Wilson spent almost have reached the conclusion … that for the spe-
eleven years wandering through China, despite cies from western China, namely … [L.] myrio-
having a wife and, eventually, a young daughter, phyllum … thirty-five cents a bulb would be a
Muriel, at home. He was tired of the explorer’s fair price, in view of the fact that these would
life before he wrote this entry in 1910 and was have to be carried on men’s backs for at least
reluctant to head back after returning from his two hundred miles before water transportation
second trip for James Veitch & Sons nursery in is reached.” Two days later, Farquhar accepted
1905. He was then working as a botanist at the the proposal, signing a contract to receive
Imperial Institute of Science in London and lived two separate shipments of bulbs collected by
at Kew, just a short walk from the Royal Botanic Wilson, paying all freight costs and a steep price
Gardens’ gate. But, the stubborn persistence of for each sound bulb delivered.
Arnold Arboretum director Charles Sprague In the winter of 1907, Wilson found himself
Sargent (and his accomplice Ellen Willmott, back in China and in no time reassembled his
who worked the local English angle) finally per- team in Yichang, Hubei Province. The collecting
suaded Wilson to return to China in 1907, for was good—Wilson began to accumulate vouch-
what he thought was a final time. Whereas his ers, photographs, and plant material (including
trips for Veitch were motivated more by profit two Acer griseum seedlings that still grow in
than botany, his work for the Arnold Arbore- the Arboretum’s collection). His first batch of
tum was a scientific endeavor, with value placed lilies was also coming along nicely. According
on the germplasm secured in seeds, cuttings, to the Farquhar contract, Wilson was to collect
and plants, as well as on the collection of well- from “Central China” (namely Hubei) ten thou-
documented herbarium vouchers and photo- sand bulbs, mostly the strident orange Lilium
graphs. Sargent, however, had arranged for a cer- henryi but also L. leucanthum var. chloraster
tain procurement of bulbs, which would help and L. brownii, both creamy white. (A collec-
subsidize the 1907 expedition. tion like this would be unthinkable to modern
collectors, not just logistically but because it is
∫
Wilson first met the regal lily in August of wholly unethical to dig up bulbs like this.) For
1903 while traversing the Min River Valley; those, Farquhar would pay $0.25 each (about
the following autumn he sent about three hun- $7 today). In a letter to Sargent before the turn
dred bulbs to Veitch under collection number of the year, Wilson commented that he would
1791. They arrived in England in the spring of meet the quota but was worried about the cost
1905, flowered that summer, and were identi- of freight due to the quantity and weight of the
fied at Kew as Lilium myriophyllum, a species cases. Rather than balling each bulb in clay, as
described by the French botanist Adrian René he had done previously for Veitch, he informed
ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARCHIVES
18 Arnoldia 77/3 • February 2020
On February 2, 1909, Wilson photographed men in Yichang packing cases of lily bulbs for shipment. For this second
shipment to Boston, all of the bulbs were balled in clay.
Sargent that “this year I intend to try packing “royal lady” in bloom in the Min River Valley
in dry sand only. This method ought to succeed near Wenchuan and Maoxian and made mul-
but I know I shall be broken up if it fails.” tiple herbarium vouchers under number 1446.
On January 17, 1908, thirteen cases—con- (These were later designated as type specimens
taining eleven thousand bulbs in total—left for Lilium regale.) No doubt, he was gearing up
Yichang, travelling by ship down the Yangtze for the next round of bulb collecting to occur
for Shanghai, then to England, and eventually that autumn.
Boston. Wilson ended up compromising on the In August, Wilson received a letter from Sar-
packing. The Lilium henryi were packed in gent, sent April 25. The news was devastating.
sand; the other two species were balled in clay. Sargent reported that of the six thousand or so
“This is an experiment tried on the grounds of bulbs of Lilium henryi, which were not balled
economy in freight and packing cases,” Wil- in clay, only four to five hundred had survived.
son wrote in a letter to Farquhar on January Although it appeared that those encased in clay
29. “For if it succeeds both parties benefit. If it fared better (at least the bulbs sent to Sargent),
fails both suffer loss.” Adjusting for inflation, most cuttings, grafts, and seeds of tree species
the bounty would fetch a sum of about $77,000 had also died. “The loss of the bulbs, however
today. Farquhar would have his bulbs, Sargent a is a secondary matter as that is only the loss of
subsidized expedition, and Wilson the satisfac- money,” Sargent wrote. “In the loss of cuttings
tion of another job well done. and grafts of plants like Willows, Poplars and
Wilson and his team departed Hubei that Elms, the matter is much more serious because
spring and headed west into Sichuan for the sec- we have not seeds of these and you are not
ond part of what he thought was his final cam- likely to be in a region to obtain them again.”
paign. In late May and June of 1908, he saw his Sargent added, “We are all, of course, greatly
E. H. Wilson and the Regal Lily 19 disappointed over the outcome of this consign- Western China that has ever been made but the ment, but, as I said before, I feel absolutely sure only large one that will be made for decades to that you did what you thought was best.” come.” Wilson had no intention of returning. After receiving this devastating message, Wil- Without a doubt, such a quantity of bulbs son responded, “I need not enter into my feel- would satiate the enterprising nurseryman. The ings of bitter disappointment and vexation on higher premium ($0.35 a bulb) would satisfy the mastering its contents. In slang language I was Arboretum’s chief as well, for it would amount ‘knocked all of a heap.’” He promised Sargent to almost $200,000 today. And lastly, having he would “remedy the failure.” On October 30, rectified the previous year’s failure, Wilson Sargent wrote to Wilson: “If it is possible to could wrap up his work in China and return to make up the loss in Farquhar’s Lily bulbs, I hope England and his family. He left Beijing in April you will do so, as we counted on the profit from via train, eventually taking the Trans-Siberian these bulbs to pay a considerable part of the Railway across the expansive Russian landmass expenses of the expedition.” This time, instead to Moscow. From there, he continued to the of the long-about method of getting to Boston major cities of Europe, visiting nurseries, gar- via Europe, the bulbs would be shipped to the dens, and herbaria along the way. By the middle West Coast and travel across the continent on of May, he reunited with his family in England the Canadian Pacific Railroad (the method that and was soon looking at plants collected on ear- Farquhar used to transport bulbs from Japan). lier expeditions and reviewing the photographs And they would all be encased in clay, regard- that he took on the recent trip. less of the extra freight costs. Waiting for Wilson at Kew, however, was According to Farquhar’s contract, the second a letter from Sargent, dated May 24. Sargent shipment of another ten thousand bubs from began by addressing an issue that must have “Western China” (namely Sichuan) would be caused him—and Wilson—some consternation: shipped out in February 1909. This colorful the issue of other botanical explorers in China. motley would comprise equal numbers of Lil- “Sometime ago you wrote me expressing regret ium bakerianum, L. leucanthum, L. duchartrei, that the opportunity had not been given you to L. sutchuenense (a synonym of L. davidii), and, remain longer in China. This I confess was a of course, the regal lily. For these, Farquhar very great surprise to me for you had told me would pay $0.35 for each sound bulb delivered more than once that nothing would induce you to Boston (about $9.90 today). Wilson rallied to remain in China for more than two years.” to meet this and then some. He added a few In 1905, Frank Meyer began to explore China L. lophophorum to the mix and, in a letter to on behalf of the United States Department Sargent on December 29, reported that he had of Agriculture (and the Arboretum, when he secured a total of twenty thousand lily bulbs, found woody species of interest). And in Febru- all balled in clay. “Last year’s experiment in ary of 1909, Sargent and Veitch Nursery jointly attempted economy has been enough!” he dispatched another Kew graduate, William wrote. When the bulbs left Yichang for Bos- Purdom, to pick up where Wilson was leaving ton, on February 20, 1909, the thirty-two off. While Wilson was eager to end the arduous cases included over two thousand bulbs of work in China, he was also worried about his regal lily. “This collection is a large one, and reputation and the prospect of being replaced. has been got together at a great expenditure of In the letter that Sargent referred to, dated energy, indeed, I hardly know how it has been March 9, 1909, Wilson discussed both Meyer obtained,” Wilson wrote to Sargent on March and Purdom, and he admitted to “a slight feel- 9. “If the bulbs arrive safely Messrs. Farquhar ing of chagrin at being passed over so completely should not complain of there being nearly 20 in favour of another and without a word of instead of 10,000.” Wilson continued with a warning.” He continued: “It can be interpreted boastful reflection: “It gives them, I make bold unfavourable on the work I have accomplished to say, the finest chance they will have of secur- during the past two years. I merely mention ing not only the largest collection of Lilies from this—I do not say I think it thus intended.”
ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARCHIVES
20 Arnoldia 77/3 • February 2020
Snow covered the hills south of Yichang, as Wilson prepared to leave China in 1909, for what he thought was the
final time. Wilson took this photograph on January 21 of that year.
And then, Sargent dropped the other shoe. On June 9, Wilson wrote to Sargent: “The
In addition to the thirty-two cases shipped to disastrous news you sent, re. the condition of
Farquhar, another five (including three cases shipments, is a severe blow to me.” Wilson
of bulbs and other plants for Sargent’s private had spent two years of rigorous and dangerous
garden and friends) were shipped to the Arbo- work in China, away from his family and alone
retum. Not only had the smaller shipment save the companionship of his Chinese team
“arrived in the most unsatisfactory condition,” (which included Walter Zappey, who collected
Sargent wrote that the “bulbs sent to me were alongside Wilson for Harvard’s Museum of
in much worse condition than those of the pre- Comparative Zoology). His own legacy’s status
vious shipping. I do not think there is life in loomed in his mind well before getting this lat-
one per cent. of them.” As if Wilson couldn’t est news, and with this failure, Wilson likely
realize the magnitude of the loss on his own, felt his reputation would suffer. Perhaps rec-
Sargent spelled it out: “This is, of course, a seri- ognizing Wilson’s state, Sargent proposed that
ous matter for the Arboretum as it involves a Wilson come to Boston that summer to work
loss of probably six or seven thousand dollars through the innumerable herbarium vouchers.
which there is now no way of making up.” In Wilson—now unemployed and much in need of
a follow-up letter to Wilson on June 3, Sargent a salary—agreed, noting, “It will also allow the
confirmed that Farquhar’s bulbs suffered simi- ‘rounding off’ of the expedition in a manner I
larly. An annotated manifest noted that just hope completely to your satisfaction.”
121 of the 2,182 regal lily bulbs were alive at Sargent still described the expedition as suc-
the time of arrival. Despite careful packing, the cessful in a letter to Ellen Willmott on August
bulbs rotted in the ship’s cargo hold. 23, no doubt because of the photographs, vouch-
E. H. Wilson and the Regal Lily 21
ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARCHIVES
Wilson photographed the habitat of the regal lily on August 31, 1910, just a few days before the landslide. “A typical
view in upper Min Valley,” Wilson later captioned the image, “showing barren desolate nature of the country.”
ers, and germplasm that had, in fact, survived. tributed to the Arboretum’s Chinese Explora-
However, noting that the bulb debacle had cost tion Fund in hopes of a few plants of their own.
the Arboretum nearly $8,000 (about $225,000 The Wilsons departed Boston for England in
today), Sargent reminded her that she needed to the winter of 1910. Nellie and Muriel remained
remit to him the sum of £6.10.3 (about $1,000 with relatives while Wilson retraced his jour-
today) for her subscription to Wilson’s expedi- ney via train back to Beijing.
tion over the past two years.
∫
That September, Wilson, his wife, and daugh- After the landslide and after doctors reset
ter sailed for Boston, and he was soon organizing Wilson’s leg, a Canadian Pacific Railroad train
his herbarium specimens and doing his best to from Vancouver arrived in Boston. It was April
properly identify those lacking names. Nothing 20, 1911, and the shipment carried Farquhar’s
documents the conversations that must have complete order of bulbs, including some six
occurred between him and Sargent, but within thousand of the regal lily. They were immedi-
a few months, Wilson was planning a fourth ately placed on the ground at the nursery and
trip to China. How much of this was due to covered with soil. That summer, they flow-
Sargent’s coaxing and how much of it was Wil- ered with wanton abandon, producing copi-
son’s need for redemption, we do not know. It ous seeds by October. In Farquhar’s Autumn
was likely a mixture of both. Wilson planned a Catalog, bulbs were already selling for $1.50
yearlong trip to Sichuan, with a focus on coni- apiece ($40 today).
fers that had evaded him before. To subsidize Farquhar’s Garden Annual of January 1912
the expedition, Farquhar would still pay $0.35 lauded the regal lily, particularly the flower’s
for each bulb, while other private sponsors con- unoppressive, jasmine-like perfume, and pre-
22 Arnoldia 77/3 • February 2020 dicted it the Easter lily of the future. The Mas- the teens, though there was the occasional offer sachusetts Horticultural Society awarded it a of bulbs for $0.90 each. John Farquhar died in Gold Medal, and a beautiful illustration graced 1921, but the nursery continued under new the November cover of The Garden Magazine leadership. Over the next decade, other nurser- (the American publication, not to be confused ies such as Wayside Gardens (in Mentor, Ohio) with the journal of the Royal Horticultural and Baums (in Knoxville, Tennessee) promoted Society). Further admiration for it and other their own regal lily stock. lilies appeared in an article in the same issue, Despite predictions that the regal lily would with Farquhar’s advertisements promoting displace the common Easter lily as a forced bulb, their near-exclusive corner on the market. production challenges limited this endeavor. Wilson—the one who brought the horticul- A 1921 “Talk of the Trade” article in Horti- tural world the regal lily—saw his reputation culture Magazine noted how bulbs had to be climb with that of the plant. The species, pro- “carried over a year in a pot without having the filed on page one of Farquhar’s Garden Annual flowers cut,” which was impractical for most of 1913, was attributed to “the indefatigable growers. Furthermore, a 1926 United States plant collector, Mr. E. H. Wilson,” who had col- Department of Agriculture bulletin described lected it “in remote and hitherto unexplored how the market became flooded with smaller regions.” That June, Wilson set the taxonomic and smaller bulbs of poorer quality as growers record straight in The Gardeners’ Chronicle, offloaded stock, raising speculation about the distinguishing Lilium regale from L. myrio- species’ worthiness. phyllum, the regal lily’s maiden moniker. In When Farquhar’s nursery published its 1929 this short article, Wilson also told the tale Garden Annual, regal lily was no longer pro- about the bulbs’ transport “on men’s backs and filed on page one, but was bundled with the by riverway 2,000 miles across China” while other hardy lilies towards the back. Bulbs sold he “accompanied them in a stretcher or on for $0.75 apiece, a price that continued to drop crutches.” While not as colorful and descriptive during the first few years of the Great Depres- as his future retellings, Wilson was finding his sion. Wilson, along with his wife, died in a car voice. He was certainly getting much practice; accident in the autumn of 1930. In 1932, R. & J. in the same year, he published A Naturalist in Farquhar Co. Nurseries went bankrupt and was Western China, a two-volume set of narratives resurrected as Dedham Nurseries. During the about his travels. liquidation sale of all nursery stock, regal lily Farquhar’s field of regal lilies in Roslindale, bulbs sold for just $0.15 each. barely one mile south of the Arboretum, was The regal lily still sold through the mid- abundantly populated, drawing crowds each twentieth century but was no longer an exclu- summer. The Horticultural Club of Boston— sive object of desire. Gardeners can be trendy, founded in late 1911 with John Farquhar and and it was the post-war era, when modern Wilson as inaugural president and secretary, breeding programs were seen as the source of respectively—made special fieldtrips to visit new plants, not old-fashioned field expeditions and witnessed some fifty thousand lilies from a bygone age. George Pride, writing in in bloom in 1914. An article in The Florists these pages in 1974, summed it up: “Although Exchange titled “Hardy Flowers at Farquhar’s the Regal Lily has been superseded in favor with in July” commented (perhaps with some hyper- many gardeners by the fine modern trumpet bole) on the lilies’ display in 1916, noting that strains of lilies, there are still gardeners who “as many as thirty-eight fully developed flowers cherish and grow Lilium regale in its pristine, have been counted from one bulb on one stem, true species form and consider it still one of the and a four year bulb will carry six stems.” It best of all lilies.” Brent and Becky’s Bulbs of was a popular item for sale and was frequently Virginia, one of the most well-known purveyors advertised in all the magazines. Farquhar’s sale of geophytes in North America, currently sells prices barely dropped to $1.25 a bulb through the regal lily for $3.30 each. Facing page: Wilson and the regal lily (Lilium regale) were both celebrated in magazines, catalogues, and newspapers.
BIODIVERSITY HERITAGE LIBRARY
2324 Arnoldia 77/3 • February 2020
ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARCHIVES
While the regal lily was never officially planted in the Arboretum collections during Wilson’s lifetime, Wilson cultivated a stand
near his home on South Street.
And thus, not even one of Wilson’s wild-
∫
The original charter for the Arnold Arboretum, collected Lilium regale bulbs was accessioned
signed on March 29, 1872, declared that the liv- at the Arnold Arboretum. In fact, regal lil-
ing collections “shall contain, as far as is prac- ies from China were first accessioned in the
ticable, all the trees, shrubs, and herbaceous autumn of 2017. Xinfen Gao, a professor of
plants, either indigenous or exotic, which can botany at the Chengdu Institute of Biology,
be raised in the open air.” Even though herba- had collected seeds while doing fieldwork near
ceous plants were included, Sargent, knowing Maoxian, along the Min River. To no surprise,
the charge was too ambitious, soon adjusted plants grown at her house flowered freely every
the scope to focus solely upon woody plants. year and set copious seed. She provided some to
His reasoning also related to the Arboretum’s Andrew Gapinski and me for the Arboretum’s
relationship with the Harvard Botanic Garden, collections at the conclusion of our expedition
in Cambridge, and to his own desire to create to Sichuan in 2017. Over a hundred bulbs from
something unique within the university. The this accession were planted in the collections
botanic garden possessed well-ordered beds of last autumn.
herbaceous plantings, and it is likely Sargent had This isn’t the first time the species was
no interest in competing with them. He would grown on Arboretum property, however.
set out to monopolize woody plants instead. Numerous lilies, including this one, grew inE. H. Wilson and the Regal Lily 25
Wilson’s personal garden, an Arboretum-owned Griffiths, D. 1926. The regal lily. United States
house across from the then Bussey Institute Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 1459.
Washington, DC.
on South Street. And, in the fall of 1963, Lil-
ium regale was included in a lily demonstration Grove, A. April 27, 1912. New or noteworthy plants:
Lilium myriophyllum. The Gardeners’
plot established at the Arboretum’s Case
Chronicle III, 51, pp. 272–273.
Estates, in Weston.
Herrington, A. 1912. Lilies from June to October. The
With Lilium regale finally growing in the
Garden Magazine, 16(4):145–147.
Arboretum’s collections, I cannot help but pon-
Horticultural Club of Boston, Minutes and Records,
der the persistent allure of the species. With
1911–1919 (volume 1). Archives of the Arnold
dogged determination, Wilson pursued it for Arboretum, Harvard University
years, and the lily still draws others to the Min
Pride, G. 1974. Lilies and the Arnold Arboretum.
River Valley, including the whole entourage Arnoldia, 34(3): 125–132.
who worked on the CCTV documentary. Wil-
Sargent, C. S. Correspondence (series III). Charles Sprague
son noted the regal lily was limited to a fifty- Sargent (1841–1927) papers, Archives of the
mile stretch along the Min River, where it was Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University.
nonetheless common. And, despite his removal Wilson, E. H. Correspondence, 1899–1930 (series W.XIV).
of nearly nine thousand bulbs between 1903 Ernest Henry Wilson (1876–1930) papers,
and 1910, the species still flourishes and is 1896–1952, Archives of the Arnold Arboretum,
not considered endangered (though it probably Harvard University.
deserves protection). In fact, a recent paper by Wilson, E. H. Fourth Expedition to China—the Second
Wu Zhu-Hua and colleagues reported surpris- for the Arnold Arboretum (series W.V). Ernest
Henry Wilson (1876–1930) papers, 1896–1952,
ingly high genetic diversity and no bottlenecks
Archives of the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard
among the populations that scatter the cliffs University.
along the Min, Heishui, and Zagunao Rivers Wilson, E. H. 1905. New and little-known lilies. Flora et
(all within the Min River Valley). It seems that Sylva, 3: 328–330.
those ever-blowing gusts play a role in the regal Wilson, E. H. June 21, 1913. New or noteworthy plants:
lily’s lasting reign, for the researchers attribute Lilium regale. The Gardeners’ Chronicle III,
the species’ survival to long-distance pollen 53, p. 416.
and seed dispersal. When I was there, with the Wilson, E. H. 1915. Consider the lilies. The Garden
lilies’ fragrance blowing in the wind, some- Magazine, 21(6): 283–286.
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