Card of the Day - 2022-04-13

This is the White Trumpet Lily, or Lilium Longiflorium, and it actually originated in Japan, on three tiny islands known as the Lui-Chiu or Ryukyu Islands.

It only arrived in England in 1819.

The reason it is here is that its other name is the Easter Lily, because, as the text tells us, “a variety, Harrisii, the Bermuda Lily, is much used for forcing for Easter.” 

These texts are very well written, so it seems a great shame that all we know about this unusual set is that it was thought to have been issued in Malta and Malaya, presumably through British American Tobacco, and that it measures the rather unusual size of 64 x 37 m/m. However, the mention of Bermuda is very intriguing because that was the main growing centre for the lily bulbs which were shipped over to America, and this would tie in nicely with these cards being produced by the British American Tobacco Company.

This card has another link to Easter, for the lily was the symbol of the 1916 Easter Rising, and badges were first produced to raise funds and to remember the dead ten years after the event.

You can read more about this at the anphoblacht website However that lily is technically the Calla Lily and not our trumpet shaped version.