How Do Lilies Seeds Appear?

Lily seeds are small, round, and can range in color from white to tan or brown. They are smooth and hard, usually formed at the end of a bloom stem. They can be planted now or harvested and saved for later use. Lily seeds should be spaced about one-half to one inch apart and should be thoroughly soaked before planting.

Calla lily plants produce beautiful, trumpet-like flowers, with white being one of the most well-known varieties. Seed pods look like small, elongated clusters at the base of the spadix, which is the finger-like structure at the bloom’s center. Daylily seeds are larger tetraploid seeds, while diploid seeds are half the size.

Calla lily seed pods are small, green, and shiny, containing up to 100 or more seeds. Some species also produce stem bulbils that look like large seeds in the leaf axis. Hybrids produce seeds, but reproduction from seed does not guarantee that. Bulbulils, or aerial bulblets, first appear as nodule-like buds that become shiny and black as they mature. They form seed pods after flowers are shed, which turn into bulbs. In colder climates, bulbs are left in ground all year due to ground frost.

Young pods are oval and lobed, with a pale green tint. The size and shape of seed pods can vary widely among lily species. Some lilies produce an onion-like seed leaf upon germination, known as epigeal germination.

Other lilies can develop seeds, but they develop inside the embryo of the flower, creating big puffy seed pods where the flower used to be.