Smooth, lance-shaped leaves, tapering at both
ends, occur in whorls of threes to eights up the stem, or the
upper ones may be alternate. Abundant food, hidden in a round,
white-shingled storehouse under ground, nourishes the plant, and
similarly its bulb-bearing kin, when emergency may require - a
thrifty arrangement that serves them in good stead during
prolonged drought and severe winters.
Why, one may ask, are some lilies radiantly colored and speckled;
others, like the Easter lily, deep chaliced, white, spotless?
Now, in all our lily kin nectar is secreted in a groove at the
base of each of the six divisions of the flower, and upon its
removal by that insect best adapted to come in contact with
anthers and stigma as it flies from lily to lily depends all hope
of perpetuating the lovely race. For countless ages it has been
the flower's business to find what best pleased the visitors on
whom so much depended. Some lilies decided to woo one class of
insects; some, another. Those which literally set their caps for
color-loving bees and butterflies whose long tongues could easily
drain nectar deeply hidden from the mob for their special
benefit, assumed gay hues, speckling the inner side of their
spreading divisions, even providing lines as pathfinders to their
nectaries in some cases, lest a visitor try to thrust in his
tongue between the petal-like parts while standing on the
outside, and so defeat their well-laid plan.
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