I had planted some asiatic lilies last year that looked wonderful. They appear to have multiplied, however I noticed an odd growth in one area of my early lily plants.
I've attached an in image of this strange large growth, surrounded by more standard lily growth.
Can someone tell me what this and why this happens? Please ignore the nearby hyacinth stem overlapping over the lilies.
I have asiatic lilies too. Do you mean the compressed growth in the center of the other lilies? That's just the main, bug bulb that's growing. It will eventually get taller, telescope upward, and "decompress". That's normal for asiatic lilies. The smaller lilies surrounding the "mama" are just baby bulbs growing.
If anyone is interested, after one month, this mutant Asiatic lily grew to the result shown below. Quite an impressive result.
Yes, if that flower head's larger than the others, or larger than normal, that confirms this is a case of fasciation, an anomaly which occurs from time to time on some plants, asiatic lilies being one of them. Certainly the clumped shoot in the first photo looks to be fasciated - it's nothing to worry about, it'll likely grow and flower normally next year. Fasciated stems often produce larger than usual flower heads.
The cause of fasciation is not always known, but usually attributed to weather or damage or simply a bit of genetic coding having a temporary blip.
