Technical Abstract: Two types of callus, a fast-growing friable callus and a slow-growing compact callus, were initiated from bulb scales of Lilium longiflorum cv. Nellie White. Sucrose affected the induction of friable callus. Friable callus was initiated from bulb scales cultured on Murashige and Skoog’s basal salts medium with 9 µM dicamba and 9% sucrose and grew 5X faster than compact callus. Friable callus formed numerous somatic embryo-like structures when cultured on Murashige and Skoog’s basal salts medium with 1% activated charcoal, but only a few embryo-like structures germinated to form plants with roots. Transformation was never achieved using biolistics on friable callus with the bar-uidA fusion gene under control of the CaMV 35S promoter or the nptII and uidA genes each under control of the CaMV 35S promoter. Plants regenerated from compact callus were phenotypically normal when grown to flowering, and regeneration appeared to be by organogenesis. Putatively transformed plants were selected from compact callus using the bar-uidA fusion gene under control of the CaMV 35S promoter. Compact callus was demonstrated to be better for future transformation experiments than friable callus.