African Lily

AFRICAN LILY, Agapanthus umbellatu

NOTHING that the great African continent has given us in the way of flowers can surpass in value the glorious old African lily, which is not a lily, but an amaryllis, and is none the worse for that. From Africa we have the magnificent terrestrial orchids called disas, any number of heaths and pelargoniums, not a few of the finest palms, and the hard-leaved cycads. But for use-fulness, the agapanthus stands alone; and if we are called upon to find a companion for it, the Vallota purpurea shall have the preference over all other African plants; and this also, although called "Scarborough Lily," is, strictly speaking, an amaryllis. The agapanthus, or African lily, has been classed as a crinum, as a hyacinth, as a polyanthus, and a tulbaghia; its modern name dates from the publication of Aiton's "Hortus Kewensis," wherein, on the authority of L'Heritier, it is entered by the name now universally recognised. It was cultivated in the Royal Gardens at Hampton Court in 1692, therefore it is no novelty; and yet of its history there is not much to be said.

This fine plant is commonly and advantageously regarded as requiring protection in winter, and is, therefore, grown in pots and tubs. It is, however, quite hardy in the southern counties, and in London survives an ordinary winter in the open border, where, if spared for a few years the trial of a severe and prolonged frost, it increases to a large mass, and flowers freely in the month of September. The winter of 1885-6, the longest we have known, though certainly not the severest, affected out-door plants at Kew so slightly, that when, in the month of April, the spring renewed the growth of vegetation, they were found to be fresh and green, and scarcely touched by the winter frost. In the Botanical Gardens of Manchester some large clumps have stood out in borders for several years, with but little harm, from which they have soon recovered. Some very fine clumps that we had in the open border, on heavy land, in a northern suburb of London, were so much injured by the keen frost that occurred in the month of March, 1880, that it was not until the end of May that they presented above ground a new growth of green leaves from the roots; and in that year they did not flower, having enough to do to accomplish their re-establishment.