Hippeastrum species
- To: s*@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
- Subject: Hippeastrum species
- From: J* S*
- Date: Sun, 19 Dec 1999 08:47:23 -0500
Some folks in the shadegardens list have been discussing Hippeastrum
("amaryllis" ) and I would like to broaden the conversation if we can.
Hippeastrum species are very, very hard to come by! The International Bulb
Society has the collection of Mr. J.L. Doran, a retired ag engineer who
used to spend his vacations trekking through the boondocks of South America
looking for wild Hippeastrum. On rare occasions, IBS sells the surplus
offsets from the Doran Hippeastrum Collection to its members, for prices
starting at around $25 for the commoner types as I recall. Many of the
species are so rare that they are literally priceless.
I have a good batch of bulbs of Hippeastrum aulicum ( maybe a half dozen),
a bloom of which I have pictured in my amaryllid bulb site,
http://garden.dmans.com/amaryllids/
but I do not sell bulbs; I only trade bulbs. I recently acquired several
small seedlings of H. papilio from friends in IBS, and I have a struggling
pot of offsets of H. reginae. H. flammigera does great; and I have a bulb
of that, so I will probably have lots of bulbuls from it in a year or two.
A bulb of the rare and colorful H. nelsonii is surviving, but I am not sure
I can keep it alive, let alone bring it to bloom.
Hippeastrum papilio is sold as the "Butterfly Amaryllis" (that's what its
name means) by several sources. There are some hybrids of it on the market
too.
Van Bourgondien in the USA sells the amaryllis developed by Hadeco in South
Africa; and Mr. Barnhoorn, the head of Hadeco, is trying to bring more
species germplasm into their amaryllis breeding program.
Jim
*************************************************
Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://a1.com/daylily/
Westfield, IN 46074, USA Tel. +1-317-896-3925
