Lilies in China

David Victor davidxvictor@mailblocks.com
Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:48:07 PDT
Dear all,

I was lucky enough this year to spend July botanising in Yunnan, western 
China.  This is a mountainous area, rising to around 20,000 feet at its 
highest and stretching along the Burmese border up to Tibet, cut through by 
three great rivers, the Mekong, Salween and Yangtse.  It accommodates some 
16,000 species of plants and is the home of many of our garden 
plants.  These were mainly collected by the great plant hunters of the 19th 
and early 20th century:  French missionaries such as David, Delavay, Farges 
and Soulie, then their commercial successors Wilson, Forrest and, to a 
lesser extent, Kingdom Ward and Rock.

I was part of a group led by Professor Sun Weibang of Kunming Botanical 
Garden.  We travelled from Kunming in the south-east, through Dali to Liuku 
near the Burmese border, then north through Jianchuan and Zhongdian to 
Benzilan in the north-west.  Mountain areas visited included Gaoligongshan, 
Xiaosueshan, Habashan and Baimashan.

Along the way, we found a number of members of the lily family and I have 
added a number of pictures of them to the WIKI.  Amongst the genus Lilium 
there were two turk's caps, L. duchartrei and L. taliense and one trumpet 
lily, L. sargentiae.  These can be found at:

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

We also found Nomocharis aperta, surely one of the most beautiful of all 
bulbs and this can be seen at:

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Last, but by no means least in this feast of plants, we found Notholirion 
bulbiferum, which can be seen at:

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Enjoy!

Best regards,
David Victor 




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