Lilies: Seed production vs. Bulb size, 1 by Leftwood

Leftwood wrote:
Any of you that may lurk on the Rock and Alpine Forum may remember me posting about the Scottish plantsman Ian Young. He has proven that allowing seeds to develop on many different bulbous plant species (that normally go dormant during the hot summer) does not reduce bulb growth for that season. In fact, often an increases of bulb size is observed, compared to plants whose waining flowers were removed.

He observed that these bulbous species , stay green and actively growing later into the summer if they produce seed, compared to plants of the same species that do not have seed pods. He theorizes that because the plant is actively growing longer, it has a longer time to replenish the bulb, thus producing a large bulb.

While he has not tested any Lilium species (as far as I know), he has proven his hypothesis with several summer dormant Fritillaria species, and from Fritillaria to Lilium is not a huge jump. And similarly, while the Lilium genus does not normally go dormant for the summer, there are times when plants will shut down prematurely due to various stresses.

Fear not, all this drivel does have a meaningful end.

Look, Look! (at the pic) My own unintended "experiment" supports (so far) this same theory. Five plants of Lilium amabile bloomed with two or three flowers each. (The small stems are from stem bulblets from last year.) Two were allowed to set seed, the others had their flowers removed once they withered. The three without seedpods are turning yellow and going dormant, while the two with seedpods are still healthy green. Hmmm . . .

I will be planting all these this fall in the garden, and then I will see which bulbs are larger . . .

Rick