The species lilies offered nowadays are, in general, selections made out of the original, wild growing, species lilies. In nature you often see a great deal of variation within a single species, and growers used to start by looking for the largest and strongest plant to collect seeds from. Once a grower starts multiplying this bulb he will continue to look for plants that perform better than the rest for further propagation. Every time he will choose his best plants to continue the stock and by doing this you will often see propagated lilies perfroming much better than the ones growing in the wild.