The white Easter lily also symbolizes purity. Artists for centuries have portrayed the angel Gabriel coming to the Virgin Mary with a spray of lilies in his hand, to announce that she is to be the mother of the Christ child. Roman mythology associates the white lily with Juno, the queen of gods. It is said that when queen Juno was feeding her baby son Hercules, a portion of the milk fell on to the earth, leading to the blooming of gorgeous white lilies.
The lovely white Madonna lily was used for years as the Easter lily. It often failed to bloom in time for Easter, however, and so Bermuda lilies were substituted. They have six-part flowers (three petals and three sepals colored alike) and usually six stamens.
Bermuda lilies are called so because they were first found in Bermuda by Ms Thomas P Sargent in the 1880s. Since these lilies bloom naturally in springtime, she brought its bulbs in back home in Philadelphia. There, a nursery man, called William Harris, made it popular among other florists.
