Lilium Regale - this lily was sometimes chosen by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and many Victorian painters to feature in their paintings. The white lily being the symbol of purity, modesty, virginity, and innocence.
Convent Thoughts - Charles Allston Collins - Ashmolean Museum
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose - by John Singer Sargent 1856 - 1925 - Tate Britain
I have shown this picture before but make no excuse for showing it again - it is lovely. Sargent began the painting here in the Cotswolds at Russell House, Broadway, the home of another painter F.D. Millet, and shortly after his move to Britain from Paris.
The title of the painting comes from a song popular in the late 19th century called The Wreath by Joseph Mazzinghi. Sargent and his circle frequently sang around the piano whilst staying at the artists colony in Broadway; the refrain of the song asks the question "Have you seen my Flora pass this way?" to which the answer is "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose".
The lilies 'heady' scent, particularly in the early evening, attracts insects. Here a hoverfly enjoys nectar. Many hoverflies mimic the colouration of bees and wasps. This enables them to avoid attack by predators who believe they might be able to sting.
Lilium Leichtlinii
Lilium Davidii
Yellow trumpet lily - copper king
Red or scarlet lily beetle - Lilioceris lilii
Yes, I guess this little red lady has spotted me as she smartly heads off at a gallop down my lily. I can see that she has been busy eating the leaf and has nodoubt left several of her minute bright orange progeny underneath it too. For a few weeks in the summer the Red Lily Beetle is the bane of my life, eating the leaves and then eventually the stems whilst depositing her larvae on the underside of the leaves. The larvae also carry out a brilliant demolition job on the leaves before commencing on the stems. Naturally, very rapidly, they grow into fat pale orange grubs which metamorphose into, I must admit, rather beautiful Red Lily Beetles - thus the wheel keeps on turning again and again.
****Warning****
Avert your eyes now if you would rather not see what they get up to!!!
The final stages before another red lily beetle appears
