The Surprise Lily King has left the Garden

We are in mourning this week, for our friend, Lycoris guru, Phillip Adams of California, who passed away in early July at the age of 82. Phil struggled to recover from a fall a couple of months earlier. Phil grew up in on the Mississippi delta, before moving to the Memphis, Tennessee region, where he became enchanted with the genus Lycoris, as an understudy to the Lycoris godfather, Sam Caldwell. Although Phil was a lawyer by trade, he was a passionate lycoris breeder in his spare time. Phil split time between his former garden near Memphis, and his home near Los Angeles. He is survived by his long-time partner, Rex Howen.

It was Phil’s exhaustive 115-page article on Lycoris (Lycoris – Jewels among the amaryllids, A Gardeners Perspective) in the now defunct International Bulb Society, that first brought Phil’s work to my attention. I immediately contacted him, asking if he’d ever be interested in having any of his lycoris made commercially available to the public. The answer was a resounding, NO. Phil let me know in no uncertain terms, that his only interest was a scientific one, to learn more about the genus. That rebuff began thirteen years of regular correspondence about lycoris taxonomy, as we both sought to work together to resolve some of the confusion in the taxonomy of the genus. In 2013, two years into our information exchanges, Phil emailed to let us know that he’d decided to sell us his entire surprise lily collection. This included his hybrids, unreleased breeding work from the USDA in the early 1980s, and many of Sam Caldwell’s original hybrids and species type specimens. Fortunately, he kept many of his most special hybrids, which he continued to work with, and would subsequently share as they were ready.

We knew that working with his collection would involve a massive amount of time and energy, which began with building beds in which to row out the bulbs for future study, evaluation, and photography. This study included evaluation for flower time and quality, while simultaneously using the collections to untangle the mysteries of the genus. Thanks primarily to Phil, our lycoris collections now include 1,097 different taxa. I had the pleasure of visiting Phil in 2015, and was amazed to check out his numerous breeding projects, which also included Amaryllis belladonnas, and various lilium species.

Our regular email exchanges were always about our latest plant projects and observational revelations. My last email from Phil (below) was in mid-May, just prior to his fall, where he outlined his upcoming plant work:

“Hey Tony,  Here’s my hoping that your spring sales have been the best ever!~~~ And here’s a story. The U.S. guru for Amaryllis belladonna was Bill Welch, who died several years ago. He had a nursery somewhere near Carmel in which he hybridized tazetta daffs and belladonna, offering his results to the public. About 30 or 35 years ago he made a trip to LA and stopped by my house to see my belladonna in early September bloom. (He brought me a tazetta hybrid that looks much like another, but his will make open pollinated seed.)  As he looked at my belladonna blooms, he said he was “amazed” (???). His comment was that my intraspecific hybrids were likely the best in the world (possibly excluding a breeder in Australia)!” 

“I explained to him that I had started my belladonna project in 1972 or 1973 by begging or buying the best examples from LA growers. I also went to Fair Oaks (near Sacramento) to see Les Hannibal’s bulbs. Les died many years ago, and I do not know what happened to his plants. However, when I visited I declined any gifts as almost all his foliage showed signs of virus. He had some interesting stuff but not any that I especially desired as my own hybrids were on par. And so it was, every year I made selections for hybridizing and grew the seedlings to where I could make selections. The results of three (?) generations of selection are what Bill Welch saw. Since then, I have continued every year to selectively hybridize. I have even sent seed to So. Africa.”

“Early belladonna hybrids pretty much were the same as the species in So. Africa in that the flowers all leaned toward the sun. Welch and I assiduously worked to create plants in which the flowers were a true umbel. Now, ALL mine are radial and a few actually have a dome-shaped cluster of flowers, which is a new look. I have succeeded in creating pure white flowers (no typically amber throat at all). Last year I crossed the two best magenta-colored ones and that was my crop of seed. My stock has colors from purest white to varying shades of pink, to dark magenta (erroneously called “dark pink” by some). As belladonna grows like a weed here, about 10-12 years ago the LA arboretum sent a truck and three workers who dug and accepted a massive collection. I went to see them a couple of years ago, and they are being grown well. At that time I retained the very best cultivars and have them planted here in my cramped back yard. Now, I finally have offsets large enough to bloom on their own. “

“Thus, my proposal.  Since you seem to have done well in overwintering the test bulbs I sent you, here’s my offer. In exchange for two seed pods loaded with ripe Lilium sargentiae seed made from your best plants this fall, I will send to you one blooming-size bulb of each of my breeding stock. That would be 25 or more bulbs (but I cannot give an accurate count since the foliage is currently covering them all). I cannot guarantee that each one will be blooming size, but I think they all should be. I can dig and ship the bulbs in August — you might even get bloom!” 

Phil, you will be sorely missed. Your contributions to the world of horticulture are amazing, and we thank you for entrusting us to carry on your life’s work.