Many flowers in Palestine are called lilies. In early spring the ground is carpeted with their brilliant, colorful blossoms. Jesus was speaking in Luke 12 to the multitude near the plain of Gennesaret, a district noted for its colorful flowers. The most brilliant was the anemone or windflower. It grows along all sides of the roads ranging in color from crimson to brilliant purple. The plant grows from a bulb and reaches a height of about six inches. It has a ruff of fine cut leaves beneath the blossoms and other fern-like leaves around the base of the stem. It comes to life every year after early rains begin.
-from ALL THE PLANTS OF THE BIBLE by Winifred Walker
Click here to view an Anemone
The Hebrew name shushan or shoshan, i.e., "whiteness", was used as the general name of several plants common to Syria, such as the tulip, iris, anemone, gladiolus, ranunculus, etc. Some interpret it, with much probability, as denoting in the Old Testament the water-lily (Nymphoea lotus of Linn.), or lotus (Song 2:1, 2; Song 2:16; Song 4:5; Song 5:13; Song 6:2, 3; Song 7:2). "Its flowers are large, and they are of a white colour, with streaks of pink. They supplied models for the ornaments of the pillars and the molten sea" (1Ki 7:19, 22, 26; 2Ch 4:5). In the Canticles its beauty and fragrance shadow forth the preciousness of Christ to the Church. Groser, however (Scrip. Nat. Hist.), strongly argues that the word, both in the Old and New Testaments, denotes liliaceous plants in general, or if one genus is to be selected, that it must be the genus Iris, which is "large, vigorous, elegant in form, and gorgeous in colouring."
Click here to view an Iris
The lilies (Gr. krinia) spoken of in the New Testament (Mat 6:28; Luke 12:27) were probably the scarlet martagon (Lilium Chalcedonicum) or "red Turk's-cap lily", which "comes into flower at the season of the year when our Lord's sermon on the mount is supposed to have been delivered. It is abundant in the district of Galilee; and its fine scarlet flowers render it a very conspicous and showy object, which would naturally attract the attention of the hearers" (Balfour's Plants of the Bible).
Click here to view a Turk's cap lily
Of the true "floral glories of Palestine" the pheasant's eye (Adonis Palestina), the ranunuculus (R. Asiaticus), and the anemone (A coronaria), the last named is however, with the greatest probability regarded as the "lily of the field" to which our Lord refers. "Certainly," says Tristram (Nat. Hist. of the Bible), "if, in the wondrous richness of bloom which characterizes the land of Israel in spring, any one plant can claim pre-eminence, it is the anemone, the most natural flower for our Lord to pluck and seize upon as an illustration, whether walking in the fields or sitting on the hill-side." "The white water-lily (Nymphcea alba) and the yellow water-lily (Nuphar lutea) are both abundant in the marshes of the Upper Jordan, but have no connection with the lily of Scripture."
-Easton's Bible Dictionary
Luke 12:27 (KJV) Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
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