Description:

• Erect herbs with scaly bulbs; roots thick
• Stems erect, annual, usually unbranched, not enclosed by membranous outer tunic
• Leaves 20-40(-60), alternate, distributed along stem, sessile, flat, dorsiventral, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, attenuate, bifacial, parallel-veined, up to 7 veins more conspicuous
• Flowers bisexual, regular, often solitary, but up to at least 7, in a raceme, horizontal, (120-)150-200 mm long, infundibuliform, hypogynous
• Pedicels erect to cernuous, not articulated
• Tepals 3 + 3, similar, forming a tube, reflexed distally, not clawed, white; glabrous, nectariferous furrow towards base
• Stamens 3 + 3; filaments glabrous, free, filiform above, linear below, 90-140 mm long; anthers epipeltate, 2-locular, dorsifixed, opening longitudinally, introrse; pollen yellow
• Ovary superior, 3-locular, sessile, oblong to obovoid; ovules (1-)many, axile, usually biseriate occasionally multiseriate; style terete, sometimes clavate, 80-120 mm long; stigma deeply 3-lobed
• Fruit a loculicidal capsule, coriaceous, perianth deciduous
• Seeds many, flat, disc-shaped, papery
• x = 12 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Lilium L.
  • Linnaeus: 302 (1753)
  • Baker: 225 (1875)
  • Elwes: 1 (1880)
  • Krause: 329 (1930)
  • Drysdale Woodcock & Stearn: 23 (1950)
  • Sealy: 273 (1950)
  • Jessop: 214 (1979)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 100
• Southern Africa: Species 1: *Lilium longiflorum Thunb. cultivar formosanum, an occasional garden escape in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal; commercially important ornamental with beautiful flowers