PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Lilium / Regal Lily
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Liliaceae family

Regal Lily Lilium regale

Regal Lily is an introduced perennial herb, found in the lower 48 states.

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Regal Lily is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Common Milkweed
Native ★
Common Milkweed
Asclepias syriaca
●●●●●
Swamp Milkweed
Native ★
Swamp Milkweed
Asclepias incarnata
●●●●●
Butterfly Weed
Native ★
Butterfly Weed
Asclepias tuberosa
●●●●●
New England Aster
Native ★
New England Aster
Symphyotrichum novae-angliae
●●●●●
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 9 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Perennial
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~11 caterpillar species

Lilium supports ~11 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Lilium in North America, including:

Acharia stimulea · Saddleback Caterpillar Moth Acrolepiopsis incertella · ermine moth Euxoa messoria · Reaper Dart Hymenia perspectalis · snout moth Macronoctua onusta · Iris Borer Papaipema cataphracta · Burdock Borer
+ 6 more species →
Papaipema cerina · Golden Borer Moth Papaipema nebris · Stalk Borer Papaipema sauzalitae · owlet moth Sparganothis sulfureana · Sparganothis Fruitworm Spilosoma virginica · Virginian Tiger Moth Xanthopastis timais · owlet moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (11) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[08] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[09] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[10] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[11] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…