"Spider" wrote in message
...

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...
Some nearly forty years ago a dear friend, now dead, gave me a lily bulb
(or whatever). It regularly produced a few large purple flowers. I've no
idea what it is apart from that, it's just known as 'Nana Rowe's Lily'
and we're very fond of it.

Last year was a poor year for many things in the garden and we noticed
that the lily developed a very broad, flat (ribbon-like) stem. It was
almost as though there were several adjacent but thin stalks fused
together. Many little bulbs grew at the top of the stem but didn't come
to anything.

The same has happened this year but in seemingly ideal conditions for
many of our plants (thank goodness for the freezer!) the lily has
flowered - lots and lots of small purple lily flowers.

Is this a known condition, is it fatal, can the plant be restored to
normal and does anyone know what might have caused it? We don't want to
lose it although we realise that everything has a limited life ...

I've taken pictures which I can post on alt.binaries.pictures.gardens or
send here as tinypics, if anyone's interested.

TIA

Mary

The problem you describe is called 'fasciation'. It can be caused by
frost, mechanical or insect damage ... plus a few unknowns. It is not
usually fatal. Possibly, if an insect caused the fasciation, it could
introduce a virus (which might be fatal), but I've never heard of
fasciation causing death in a plant. As far as I know there's no cure.
In a shrub, it can be cut out, but not in a lily. Perhaps you could
propagate the lily from the bulb, as an 'insurance policy'?

How do you suggest I do that?

Before I sent this I Googled for images and our lily is absolutely typical
of fasciation (or a 'monstrous growth', as Bob calls it). But what
interested me in particular was a picture of a fasciated dandelion. Some
years ago I found one of these, growing at the base of a wall on a main
road. I kept I but had no idea what to do about it (pre-pc days) so never
knew what it was.

It's fascinating, thank you. I'd still like to know how to propagate the
lily.

I'd also like to know, in passing, what type of lily it is :-)

Thank you,

Mary