Saturday, August 1, 2009

Kelley's Tiger Lily at Horse Lake


Lilies can be found in various habitats of California between the coast and the high Sierra Nevada. The yellow to yellow-orange flowers of this lily were gently nodding in the warm summer winds on a July day at Horse Lake, east of the Pacific Crest. Some lily plants around this small lake were five feet high. Characteristic features are the nodding regular flowers with recurved, purple-spotted petals and dark magenta anthers at long downward-pointing stamens. Some flowers are pendant on undulating pedicels, as can be seen in a previously published picture. These observed features fit best with those given for the Sierra Lily, also called Tiger Lily or Kelley's Tiger Lily (Lilium kelleyanum).

Note
For comparison of some yellow-flowered plants including lilies such as Alpine Lily (Lilium parvum), Sierra Lily (Lilium kelleyanum), and Leopard Lily or Panther Lily (Lilium pardalinum) see Yellowish Flowers and the Falcon Guide “Tahoe Wildflowers” by Laird R. Blackwell.
According to the respective USDA plant profiles, lilium species of the lily family follow this scientific classification:
Kingdom: Plantae - Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta - Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta - Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta - Flowering plants
Class: Liliopsida - Monocotyledons
Subclass: Liliidae
Order: Liliales
Family: Liliaceae - Lily family

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