Description
Lilium rubellum (known as Otome-Yuri or ‘Maiden Lily’ ) is native to mountain woods and the alpine zones on Honshu, the main island of Japan. It grows there at up to 3,000m altitude. Often in areas that lie under deep snow in winter.
The gently flared trumpets are sweetly fragrant and are a beautiful pale shell pink with a yellow throat and yellow-orange pollen. The stems reach about 30-45cm in the wild, though the literature suggests that 85cm is possible in cultivation.
Reputed to like acidic soil in the wild, this is not essential in cultivation. What is does need however is a long, cold and almost dry rest in the winter. This is an alpine species and it sits, dormant, below snow until as late as May. It will happily take alpine house cultivation but regardless of where you have it, if you keep it too warm in winter then it will start into growth too early, become spindly, perhaps abort its buds and generally look sickly. I stress again that this needs to be kept cool over winter, not forced in any way
Humus-rich but sharply-drained, fertile soil or compost in half shade. This can seem to be a bit unforgiving at times as the bulbs are naturally not large, so they do not have the resources to survive a period of careless treatment or poor cultivation.
