Giant Lily

Nathanial Wallich, a Danish surgeon, discovered the Giant Himalayan Lily in 1821, describing it as Lilium giganteum, but he didn’t manage to introduce it to Europe until 1852, in part because of the peculiarity of its growth pattern.

It’s not even a lily, and the giveaway is the heart-shaped leaves which distinguish this genus from true lilies with their strap-shaped leaves. And the fact that it’s four metres tall, of course! Moist, fertile soil in a woodland setting, that provides shelter from wind, best suits the Himalayan Lily because the foothills of the Himalayas, from Nepal through northern Burma to south western China, are the natural home of this plant, which thrives in wet forests and scrub at heights of between 1600 and 3300 metres. Historical records show that as part of Indian traditional medicine, the leaves of this plant are applied to wounds and bruises – although it has not yet been tested for medicinal value in the West.

The huge, downward pointing trumpet-shaped white flowers have bright orange hearts and look just like real lilies, but on a gigantic scale. Their fragrance has been described as like butterscotch ice-cream, although I’d say it’s more like white chocolate, myself. Once the lilies have flowered, they set huge seed heads which point up to the sky although the flowers pointed downwards.

Once it has flowered the bulb dies, which is why the early botanists failed to propagate it, but now we know that six to eight offsets to the main bulb appear, which can be divided and replanted. These usually flower in three years, so from seed to bulb in total it takes a period of seven years.

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