Lilium are Fritillaria-type plants. Triploid lilies, regardless of their male sterility, can be used as female parents to cross with appropriate males, in contrast to other triploid Polygonum-type plants, which are usually seedless. Up to now, however, little attention has been paid to the reason. Here we made allotriploid 9 diploid/tetraploid crosses in Lilium. Endosperm and progenies of LAA 9 AA/AAAA crosses were analyzed for ploidy level and genome composition. The endosperm of some LAA 9 AA/ AAAA ovules developed well but there was little or no development of LAA 9 LL/OO endosperm. The endosperm genome composition of LAA 9 AA, LAA 9 AAAA, LAA 9 LL, LAA 9 OO are theoretically derived as 5A ? 2L, 6A ? 2L, 4A ? 3L, 4A ? 2L ? O, respectively. Genomic in situ hybridization showed that the progenies of LAA 9 AA/ AAAA were aneuploid. Based on the experimental results and analyses, our hypothesis is that five same genomes of endosperms are essential for its development in triploid 9 diploid/tetraploid crosses of Lilium. The hypothesis can explain the success or failure of 3x 9 2x/4x crosses in Lilium and is of importance for lily breeders who need to know the likelihood of success when producing new cultivars of this economically important horticultural crop.