Stunted lily flowers, any ideas why?

10 years ago

I have a three year old group of Oriental lilies purchased as an unnamed mix from van engelen. The first two years they all looked great. This year the dark pink ones, and only those, were much smaller plants, had brown spots in the developing buds and now have stunted and discolored flowers.

Here is a picture with the dark pink one and I pulled down one of the normal looking lighter pink ones for comparison. I think all the lilies in this planting have light foliage, but only the dark pinks have this browning.

Any ideas what might be causing it?

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Comments (4)

wieslaw59
10 years ago
Late frost can stunt flower buds. Fungi?
trovesoftrilliums
Original Author
10 years ago
We did have a late frost--we seem to every spring. This year I noticed some damage on my astilbe foliage so perhaps it was worse than usual. So maybe the darker pink ones are more susceptible to whatever it is. I wonder if you can see plant fungal diseases with a microscope.

Dinner will have to wait....
I have plants to examine.
katob Z6ish, NE Pa
10 years ago
Did you discover anything under the scope? Or did dinner win out after all ?lol
We had a strong late frost this spring and I was amazed by the number of flowers stunted and damaged as the weeks unfolded. Most were distorted and stunted, I don't recall much browning....
trovesoftrilliums
Original Author
10 years ago
DH brought home pizza and then we both spent some time fiddling with the microscope but we weren't able to see anything. This is an old University surplus scope--good quality but it has a few issues. Plus, I really need to make slides for better viewing. I know we have slide supplies somewhere so I might still work on this. I did find a lot if interesting pictures online. I am going to try to find a plant pathology textbook because I am finding looking at plsnts under the microscope quite fascinating.

About the lilies: these are some monster lilies; seems they are the ones referred to as 'tree lilies'. Last year almost every plant had 16+ buds. this year they have fewer buds but are taller than last year with most 6-7 ft tall (except the darker pink ones). In other threads people have mentioned recent lily varieties petering out on them, perhaps these are types that lack in long term vigor. I plan to dig a few up later this year and see how the bulbs look.