My sister sent me a different Amaryllis this year. Good thing the other Amaryllis are not open yet, they would be jealous. ( photo / image / picture from Jerry Sullivan's Garden ) Jerry ( photo / image / picture from Jerry Sullivan's Garden )
My sister does find some unusual flowers, its name is: Hippeastrum papilio. Hippeastrum as it comes from South America as opposed to Amaryllis which comes from South Africa. Hippeastrum comes from ancient greek meaning 'knight's star'. Step through a history of the genus and you meet people like Carl Linnaeus, William Herbert and Filippo Parlatore. Today the official genus name is Hippeastrum with amaryllis as a common name. In any case it is a very striking epiphyte. Epiphyte? Yep, I found that morsel of info poking through the literature. I went to my Vascular Epiphyte book and there are a few more Hippeastrum that make their home on other plants. Fun stuff. Jerry
It is an epiphyte!? Wow that is a new one on me! Do you know if all amaryllis are epiphytes (eg, the ones from South Africa?)
With 91 species in the genus there are bound to be some that don't like living in the dirt. Epiphytes (they like to have the air circulate around their feet and toes) South America is home to: Hippeastrum aulicum Hippeastrum calyptratum Hippeastrum papilio Hippeastrum arboricola Not sure about this one but it too probably comes from South America Hippeastrum celebicum (Benzing) In his 2008 book Vascular Epiphytes Benzing lists the family amaryllidaceae as having 1 epiphyte, however, the family has 3 subfamilies and I don't know which one the epiphyte falls under. That was 2008 As of 2011 there are 5 amaryllis listed as epiphytes with their 'newly accepted names'. Names seem to change each time you have a symposium of more than three botanists. A. heuseriana, A. mendelii, A. roezlii, A. symonii and A. tweedieana Even these names are no longer valid as A. heuseriana is really Hippeastrum aulicum, the others undoubtedly fall in the same name change category. I think many will still call them Amaryllis. Jerry
It was raining so the avatar is happy again. A translation of my previous post: While the 14th Botanical Congress ended the debate for the scientific names of the South African and South American genus, the common name terminology often has the two genus intertwined. My hunt for an epiphytic Amaryllis ran into a few of these. It seems that the plants sold for blooming during the holiday season are all the South American Hippeastrum. The Amaryllis genus has only two species, A. belladonna and A. paradisicola. To identify an Amaryllis the flower stalk is solid, a Hippeastrum stalk is hollow. From the descriptions of the environment the South African plants grow in I would say that neither species is epiphytic. There are several Hippeastrum that are epiphytic. Jerry
It's gorgeous! We had one similar to that one for Christmas some years ago. Of course I managed to kill it.
