Western Native Lilium rubescens coming soon!

Calypsogrower is building this new page for the Redwood Chaparral Lily, Lilium Rubescens. Mendocino native Redwood Lilies are hand pollinated to bring you ripe, clean, high quality Lilium rubescens seed for naturalizing, conservation and collectors.

Here is a link to a site that has a wonderful and accurate description of lilium rubescens. It is a lovely site and very well done so far.

de Florum lily site

Another local native flower may soon be added to these pages. Lilium rubescens, the Redwood Lily, also known as Chaparral lily, Lilac lily and Chamise Lily is another stunningly beautiful Northern California Native.

The Blog has more on this. The link is on the left.

The Redwood lily loves to share the shade with Calypso and requires the same dry period in the summer and fall.

My data shows Lilium rubescens to be on the watch list for rare and endangered plants. Yes, I know this will take a few years but the Redwood Lily is a welcome addition to the world of Calypso and I am looking forward to selling seed and bulbs of this fabulously fragrant Mendocino native lily.

I took a picture today of the seed capsule that I will be harvesting in a few weeks. The plants are on a friend's land and they have been after me to work with Lilium rubescens since last spring when I went out there and took a look at the flowers. I was hooked!

The next step will be to protect a few of the clumps from deer predation. The lilies appeared to have been heavily grazed and chewed down by deer. My friend promises me next year to keep the gate closed. The colonies appear to be struggling from changes in the local area and I am very glad to be able to harvest seed this year.

I was able to find one small seed capsule that had survived but it was not ripe yet. I wrapped it in pink silk pajamas and took several pictures. So here it is August 24, 2007 and the seed here is not yet ripe.

Next spring the plan is to protect and hand pollinate any flowers and take lots of pictures of the parents of this gorgeous richly fragrant Mendocino Native Redwood Lily.

Just a little note here. I ordered 2 grams of seed and did my first sowing of four seeds in each four inch pot for a total of 107 pots. Each of these is now resting in a ziplock bag in my plant laboratory. The seed was from the local area and harvested last year. I was very concerned about breaking dormancy so I used a 1% bleach solution for 20 minutes and then three rinses and a 24 hour presoak. The color of the water changed to brown as the seed coat leached out. I needed to change the water several times. I also kept the jar in the dark when I wasn't shaking it and examining the seeds. They did swell very nicely and the outer membrane fluffed up and made a balloon of water around the inner seed structure.

I can well imagine that the constant moisture is necessary to leach the germination inhibitors. This keeps the seed from germinating in a dry year. I am learning by observation and trying to create ideal natural conditions to enhance germination.

The Calypso Orchid Company PO Box 475 Philo CA 95466 USA

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The Calypso Orchid Company