Lilium occidentale (Western Lily) Family Liliaceae

photos by Brother Alfred Brousseau

Description: Perennial reaching a height of 1.8 meters. Grows from a bulb with short unbranched rhizomes. The leaves are long (10 cm), thin (1 cm) and pointed, growing on the unbranched stem in whorls or sometimes singly. The flowers, usually 1-3 (but up to 25) on each shoot, droops down with 6 petals (3-8 cm) curving strongly backwards. The petals are red to deep orange with yellow to green star shaped centers sometimes spotted with purple. This lily can be told apart from other lilies by the flower coloration and pattern.

Threats: loss of habitat due to development and lack of new bog and wetland formation

Overview
This showy plant's population has declined primarily due to its restricted range which coincides with prime development area. It grows within four miles of the coast from the southern one third of Oregon into the northern 100 miles of California, primarily in young bogs and moist coastal scrub, forest edges and prairie. Many of its prime habitats have been drained or converted to cranberry farms. Because of its beauty, it has also declined due to picking and collecting, often for the commercial trade. This has lead to locations not being listed in order to protect the remaining populations. Other problems include grazing, loss of genetic viability due to inbreeding, and fire suppression causing plant community succession. In 1994 there were only 31 small and widely separated populations found, many on sites with plans for development. In 1998, 28 populations were found, ¾ consisting of 100 or fewer individuals (there were an additional 9 known populations with no recent survey data). Recovery is focused on managing and maintaining suitable habitat. The recovery criteria for down listing to "Threatened" is the existence of 20 populations with at least 1,000 plants. These populations should approximate their historical distribution and must be viable as indicated by a population structure that is stable or increasing in numbers. Non-government organizations involved with their recovery are Humboldt State University, The Nature Conservancy, and the Berry Botanical Gardens in Portland Oregon.
 

Distribution Current distribution is along 200 miles of coastline from Coos Bay in Oregon to Humboldt Bay in California. Historically there were 55 sites, 18 which appear to be extirpated. The remaining populations range in size from fewer than 10 to as many as 1,000 plants though most sites have less than 100.

North American Distribution (map from the Biota of North America Program)

Distribution by County

Sources
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1998. Recovery Plan for the Endangered Western lily (Lilium occidentale). Portland, Oregon.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1994. Endangered and threatened wildlife and plants. Endangered status for the plant Lilium occidentale (western lily). Federal Register 59:42176. August 17.
 
 

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