Format: ORAL

Yundong Gao1, Melvyn Herbert2

1 CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization & Ecological Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China 2 Llwynteg, Bwlchllan, Nr Lampeter, Ceredigion SA48 8QH, UK.

Lilies are amongst the most fabulous of cultivated flowers, being important subjects for both the amateur gardener and professional growers supplying the fresh cut flower trade across the globe. Compared to the great multitude of hybrid cultivars that have been developed the naturally occurring wild species are relatively few, just over a hundred of these being mainly concentrated in the northern temperate zone. Of the major distributional areas, Eastern Asia (mainly China) exhibits the greatest diversity of wild lily species, boasting over three-quarters of the taxa currently known to science.In addition to possessing the largest number of species, the Chinese lilies also display great diversity at the sub-generic level. At least 5 out of 7 of the sections that are commonly accepted are represented in the Chinese flora (though differences of opinion regarding classification within the genus do remain).Recent technological and scientific innovations, along with easier access to remote areas, mean that it is now possible to resolve many of the outstanding taxonomic puzzles relating to the lilies of China that remain from earlier times and also to incorporate the newly recognized species into a fully updated catalog of these wonderful plants.In this work, the authors make a substantial revision of all the Lilium species that are currently known to occur in China. By tracing the history of their discovery, verifying the relevant literature (i.e., the protologue and other related materials) and locating the type specimens; and combining these with the molecular evidence accumulated by the present authors, as well as the findings of over a decade of field investigation, this monograph aims to provide a fully updated catalog and enumeration of Chinese native lilies including each species' history, details of the type specimen, morphological description, distribution information, all accompanied by field images.