Description
Though widely quoted as being a synonym of Lilium nanum flavidum, the Flora of China maintains that the two are different and distinct, quoting Henry Noltie (as a pers. comm.) who considers Lilium euxanthum (from SE Xizang and Yunnan) to be distinct from L. nanum var. flavidum (from S Xizang (Chumbi valley), N Myanmar, and Sikkim). The former has oblong leaves, which do not overtop the flower, and golden yellow tepals; the latter has linear, finely tapering leaves, which overtop the flower, and pale lemon-coloured tepals.
The most obvious difference in cultivation is that L. euxanthum is a much deeper yellow and is a far superior plant. It opens its flowers a lot more, forming a full, cup shape, rather than the pallid, more tubular, flower of nanum flavidum which, to me, always looks like it is waiting for the right weather to open properly, but this never happens.
The yellow flowers of euxanthum can have some spotting on the interior, though not a lot and this is concentrated up towards the base of the anther filaments and perhaps speckling is a more accurate word than spotting. The exterior of the flower, in the same region, can be infused with a little dark violet sometimes. The style and stigma are both yellow.
This needs a well-drained but humus-rich or peaty soil to thrive, with an almost dry winter. The peat is best in the form of coarse lumps rather than anything fine or sieved. The compost needs to be very open, with lots of air-spaces and it needs top pass water freely while holding back a bit of moisture. If grown in pots, then it does need to have a cold winter rest, short of freezing but cold and long, to delay emergence in spring and also to vernalise the plants for flowering. Like so many of the dwarf Lilium (such as soulei, nanum forms, oxypetalum etc.) this needs to be regularly brought on from seed, as whilst easy enough to grow under the right conditions and flowering and setting seed regularly, it can be a bit intolerant of bad handling (even transiently so) and thus short-lived.
Picture from Ernst Gügel, Wikipedia used under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
