Lily Group Seed, a Great Resource by Alisdair Aird

The Lily Group's Seed Distribution has been a real treasure trove for me, over the years. I was originally prompted to join the Group by its displays of flowering lilies at Vincent Square, in the late 1970s. What particularly attracted me in those displays was the charm and elegance of so many of the species. Very few of those species were available commercially, let alone at reasonable prices.
By contrast, the Group's seed distribution made all sorts of rarities available, with the bonus that any seed-raised plants would at least initially be virus-free. Once I realised that the only horticultural skill needed for raising lilies from seed is patience, I embarked on what has turned out to be an immensely enjoyable and rewarding voyage of discovery through Lilium's remarkable range of sizes, shapes, fragrances and colours. If you stick to species, producing seed yourself is relatively simple. People raising hybrids have to go to considerable lengths to ensure that their hoped-for cross is not contaminated by unwanted pollen - and even then may face great difficulties in securing viable embryos.
Not so with species. Some species are self-fertile, so that even a single plant will produce viable seed. With others, once a stigma has been pollinated with pollen from another plant of the same species, it is very unlikely to be receptive to pollen from a different species (beware that this is not the case with the various subspecies of Lilium pardalinum, which are quite promiscuous among each other - and I suspect that Lilium kelleyanum is all too happy to join them). I find it better to leave the pollen-coated stigma uncovered than to use the little foil caps used by hybridisers. But in a warm summer hoverflies, greedy for pollen, can be a nuisance with the later-flowering species.
Another useful point about growing lilies from seed is that, if the seed of a species has reached the Lily Group's Seed Distribution that means someone somewhere has been able to keep that species so happy that it has produced seed. So you know that you are dealing with possibilities. Until just a few years ago, all my lilies were seed-raised, and nothing but species. It's only recently, growing bulbs of the new species from China, that I've realised how helpful this "possibility" pointer of the seed distribution is. Certainly some of the new rarities from China seem perfectly easy to grow (and indeed now to raise from seed): notable examples are Lilium rosthornii, Lilium fargesii, Lilium lijiangense and the splendidly robust new plant, allied to Lilium taliense, that John Lykkegaard calls var. kaichen and that has appeared in the seed list as aff. taliense. But others (such as the bakerianum group) - I find them very difficult or impossible to grow.