Lilium brownii Seeds | Brown’s Lily
LATIN NAME: Lilium brownii
COMMON NAME: Brown’s Lily, Hong Kong Lily
Plant Profile
Brown’s lily is a bulbous perennial of one to one and a half metres with a stiff stem, narrow lance-shaped leaves and two to five large white trumpet flowers in midsummer. The flowers are strongly scented, especially at night, and the tepals are flushed with purple on the outside.
It grows on grassy slopes and in thickets in southern and central China, including Hong Kong, and it is one of the lilies whose bulbs are eaten. The bulb is made of overlapping scales rather than a single tunic, and it is lifted for the table as well as for the garden.
Science & Biotechnology
The scent is produced mainly at night, which suggests pollination by moths rather than by day-flying insects. The trumpet shape and the long tube suit a hawkmoth, and the flowers produce nectar at the base of the tepals where only a long tongue can reach it.
The bulb stores starch and a small amount of alkaloid, and it is the starch that makes it edible. Lilies are not uniformly safe: some species contain significant alkaloids and are toxic to cats in particular, and the bulb of this species is eaten only after the scales are separated, blanched and cooked. The scales of the bulb separate cleanly when the bulb is lifted in late summer, and each scale with a piece of base will form a new bulb in two years.
Uses & Benefits
The bulb is eaten in Chinese cooking, usually dried and then rehydrated for soups with pork or chicken, and it is sold in herbal shops as bai he. It has a soft, slightly sweet texture and a mild taste, and it is used as a food rather than as a medicine.
The plant is grown in gardens for its summer flower and its scent, and it is one of the lilies that will naturalise in grass in a mild climate. The cut stems are used in floristry, where the buds open in the vase over several days. All parts are toxic to cats. The dried bulb is also used in a sweet soup with rock sugar in summer, and the fresh scales are stir-fried with pork in Hunan.
Growing from Seed
Sow the seed in autumn, since it is short-lived, in a pot of loam and grit, and leave it outdoors. Germination is hypogeal and slow, and a seedling may take four years to flower. Scales and bulbils are a faster route to a flowering plant.
Plant the bulbs twenty centimetres deep in autumn, in sun or light shade, with the base in sharp drainage and the stem in sun. Keep the roots cool with low planting or a mulch. Do not let the ground stay wet in winter, since the bulb rots. Keep cats away from the flowers.
Our Take
A fragrant Chinese lily with an edible bulb and a place in the soup pot as well as the border, and one to keep away from cats. Plant the bulbs deep.
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