The Kinds.

            Because we shall have occasion hereafter to speak of certain Cloved or Bulbed Lilies, we will in this chapter entreat only of another kind not bulbed, which likewise is of two sorts, differing principally in their roots; for in flowers they are Lilies, but in roots Asphodels, participating as it were of both, though nearer approching unto Asphodels than Lilies.

The Description.

            1. The yellow Lily hath very long flaggy leaves, chamfered or channelled, hollow in the midst like a gutter, among the which riseth up a naked or bare stalk, two cubits high, branched toward the top, with sundry brittle arms or branches, whereon do grow many goodly flowers like unto those of the common white Lily in shape and proportion, of a shining yellow colour; which being past, there succeed three-cornered husks or cods, full of black shining seeds like those of the Peony. The root consisteth of many knobs or tuberous clogs, proceeding from one head, like those of the white Asphodel or Peony.

            2. The Day-Lily hath stalks and leaves like the former. The flowers be like the white Lily in shape, of an orange tawny colour: of which flowers much might be said which I omit. But in brief, this plant bringeth forth in the morning his bud, which at noon is full blown, or spread abroad, and the same day in the evening it shuts itself, and in a short time after becomes as rotten and stinking as if it had been trodden in a dunghill a month together, in foul and rainy weather: which is the cause that the seed seldom followeth, as in the other of his kind, not bringing forth any at all that I could ever observe; according to the old proverb, Soon ripe, soon rotten. His roots are lke the former.

The Place.

            These Lilies do grow in my garden, as also in the gardens of herbarists, and lovers of fine and rare plants; but not wild in England, as in other countries.

The Time.

            These Lilies do flower somewhat before the other Lilies, and the yellow Lily the soonest.

The Names.

            Divers do call this kind of Lily, Liliasphodelus, Liliago, and also Liliastrum, but most commonly Lilium non bulbosum: In English, Liriconfancy, and yellow Lily. The old herbarists name it Hemerocallis: for they have two kinds of Hemerocallis; the one a shrub or woody plant, as witnesseth Theophrastus, in his sixth book of the History of Plants. Pliny setteth down the same shrub among those plants, the leaves whereof only do some for garlands.

            The other Hemerocallis which they set down, is a flower which perisheth at night, and buddeth at the sun rising, according to Athenaeus; and so we in English may rightly term it the Day-Lily, or Lily for a day,

The Nature.

            The nature is rather referred to the Asphodels than to Lilies.

The Virtues.

            A. Dioscorides saith, That the root stamped with honey, and a mother pessary made thereof with wool, and put up, bringeth forth water and blood.

            B. The leaves stamped and applied do allay hot swellings in the dugs, after women's travail in child-bearing, and likewise taketh away the inflammation of the eyes.

            C. The roots and the leaves be laid with good success upon burnings and scaldings.