About Convallaria majalis L.
Convallaria majalis L. is a herbaceous perennial plant that often forms extensive colonies by spreading underground stems called rhizomes. New upright shoots develop at the ends of stolons in summer, then grow into new leafy shoots in spring that remain connected to other shoots underground. Stems reach 15–35 cm (6–14 in) tall, and bear two (rarely three) leaves that measure approximately 5–20 cm (2–8 in) long and 3–7 cm (1–3 in) broad. Flowering stems produce a one-sided raceme of six to twelve pendulous flowers on the upper portion of the stem. Flowers have six white tepals, except for the variety Convallaria majalis var. 'Rosea' which has pink tepals. The tepals are fused at the base to form a bell shape with reflexed tips, 5–10 mm (0.2–0.4 in) in diameter, and have a sweet scent. Flowering occurs in late spring, typically from May to June in Britain; in mild winters in the Northern Hemisphere it can flower as early as March. The fruit is a small poisonous orange-red berry approximately 5–7 mm (0.2–0.3 in) in diameter. Each berry contains an average of 3.9 large whitish to brownish seeds, which dry into a clear translucent round bead 1–3 mm (0.04–0.12 in) wide. Fruits persist for an average of 47.5 days, have an average water content of 85.8%, and their dry weight is 14.6% carbohydrates and 1.3% lipids. C. majalis is self-incompatible, so colonies made up of a single clone do not produce seed. C. majalis is native to Europe, where it largely avoids the Mediterranean margin, and is not native to Ireland, though it is naturalised there. Like many perennial flowering plants, C. majalis uses dual reproductive modes: it produces offspring asexually via vegetative growth, and sexually via seed formed from gamete fusion. Ecologically, C. majalis grows in partial shade, is a mesophile that prefers warm summers, and can grow in both acidic and alkaline soils. It favors silty or sandy soils with plenty of humus, but also grows locally in wet fen soils. It is a Euroasiatic suboceanic species that grows from sea level up to 490 m (1,600 ft) in Great Britain, and up to 2,300 m (7,500 ft) in central and southern Europe. It acts as a food plant for the larvae of some Lepidoptera (moth and butterfly) species including the grey chi. Both adults and larvae of the leaf beetle Lilioceris merdigera can tolerate the cardenolides in C. majalis, so they also feed on the plant's leaves. Granivorous rodents sometimes remove the fruit, consuming most seeds but only a small proportion of the fruit pulp. These rodents have been observed hoarding both seeds and whole fruit, and some seeds inevitably escape predation, so the rodents also act as seed dispersers for C. majalis. The plant has been used in folk medicine for centuries. A reference to 'Lilly of the valley water' appears in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novel Kidnapped, where it is said to be 'good against the Gout', 'comforts the heart and strengthens the memory', and 'restores speech to those that have the dumb palsey'. There is no scientific evidence that lily of the valley has any effective medicinal uses for treating human diseases.
