My Frist Christmas Lily

My luck with anything anything to do with technology is really bad. Last night as I was on my tablet it died. All went black and it wouldn't reboot or anything.. just like my Samsung galaxy 4 which died earlier in the year.. now its the Samsung pro tablets turn.  I emailed Jamie to say don't phone me as I don't have a phone anymore and I did get a reply. I hadn't heard from him since Christmas morning, all seem to be going well in India.

I went over a feed Jamie's cat before, was to go tomorrow but my cousin phoned to see if I wanted a day trip up to the Bach (holiday home) as he had to drop of some timber for rabbit proofing the Bach. My nephew from Palmerston North is spending two weeks there with his family and they are going to build it. Our Bach is at Lake Clearwater  is about 150k from Christchurch up in the high County.

The cat was fine and came to meet me, so I as pleased about that. Great relief! 

Lilium regale  or Christmas lily as we know it here in NZ is a trumpet flowered lily, native to western Sichuan in China. It was introduced to England in 1903 by Ernest Henry Wilson. The flowers are 14 cm long, funnel or trumpet shaped, white with yellow throat, flushed purple outside. The flowers are strongly fragrant, especially at night.


Historical records suggest the Lily (L. candidum) was perhaps the first flower ever deliberately cultivated in the garden. Their beauty and fragrance inspired many legends during Greek and Roman times.

One remarkable but 'true' legend says:
That ancient Lilies were once deep violet purple. In actual fact, in those ancient times people had little knowledge about the origin or nature of flowers. Thus the Biblical reference to 'Lilies of the field' which would actually translate in today's language more like 'field of wildflowers'. So the 'purple Lily' in this legendary reference is much more likely to have actually  been confused with Anemone coronaria, the Wind Poppy which is commonly native to this region and is classically deep purple, blue or red.

Anyway, as the legend has it, the Roman god Jupiter placed his young son Hercules next to goddess Juno as she slept to drink her breast milk and thus become immortal. (If only immortality was really so easy!) As Hercules drank, some milk spilled onto the Earth below, falling on a patch of Lilies turning them white. The spilt milk which remained In heaven became the Milky Way. Later Juno was shown the white Lily by Flora, goddess of flowers, she became so transfixed by it’s beauty that she spontaneously gave birth to Mars without assistance of a father. Until Medieval times most people thought that a woman could become pregnant simply by touching one! If one were to ever look for a true fable, or an excuse for an unwanted pregnancy, this would have to be it!
For more information on the lily.