Amaryllis

I was shocked this week to see a flower blooming that I've not seen here on this property before: an Amaryllis! In fact, I was so surprised — and had not seen an Amaryllis in years —that I wasn't even sure it was an Amaryllis until I did a search with BING and confirmed it with the images and articles that came up in the search results.


Amaryllis (pronounced: am - uh - RIL' - is ) is a plant that can be propagated via bulb or seed. According to GardeningKnowHow.com: "While you can propagate amaryllis by seed, it will take them at least three to five years to mature, or flower." (Propagation by separating bulbs is faster.) Also, the Amaryllis family are not particularly frost-tolerant plants. So the long growing-time from seeds coupled with periodic freezing temps in the winter might have led to this plant being there long before it bloomed and presented itself in all its glory.


Names of plants can be complicated sometimes. First, there are the "common names" which are used by the general population. Then, there are the "scientific names" which are the official classification of plants by taxonomic specialists. The common name "Amaryllis" is loosely used for plants in both the "Amaryllis" and "Hippeastrum" genera, which are both within the Amaryllidaceae family. Much debate ensued among scientists, as outlined in the "Separation of Hippeastrum from Amaryllis" section of the Wikipedia article on "Hippeastrum," for those interested in such.

Only the plants in the Amaryllis genus (which are native to South Africa) are true Amaryllis and need to be outdoors to thrive. The plants in the genus Hippeastrum (which are native to South America) are able to thrive outdoors or indoors, if conditions are right, and are often potted and sold as "Amaryllis" and given as gifts. That makes the Hippeastrum plants the ones more commonly called an "Amaryllis" by the non-scientific populace.


To make matters more complicated, both genera have many cultivars, produced by crossing various plants with each other to produce desired colors, levels of hardiness, and so forth. The Hippeastrum genus has probably been cultivated more extensively in this way. So, although I am not entirely sure which genus my plant is, I suspect it is Hippeastrum, perhaps the variety known as "Red Lion" 🦁


And whatever it is, I shall enjoy these magnificent flowers while they are blooming!