Tag: summer 2023

From “Amaryllis Family (Amaryllidaceae)” in Botany in a Day by Thomas J. Elpel:

“If you have enjoyed a potted Amaryllis blooming in mid-winter, then you have met the Amaryllis family. Members of this family are typically perennial plants that resprout each year from underground bulbs. The leaves are usually somewhat juicy and tender, rather than fibrous.

“The flowers are often grouped in an umbel (like an umbrella), or sometimes solitary, and typically emerge from a spathe-like bract (a modified leaf wrapped around the flowerhead). Otherwise, individual flowers are typical lily-like blossoms with 3 sepals and 3 petals that are identical in size and color….

“As currently defined, the Amaryllis family encompasses an estimated 60 genera and 850 species, only a handful of which are found in North America. The potted flowers we know as ‘amaryllis’ were segregated from Amaryllis into a closely related new genus, Hippeastrum, but the old name remains as the common name. Edibility varies significantly across the family. Onions (Allium) and their kin have sometimes been segregated into their own family, and may be yet again.”

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Hello!

This is the second of three posts featuring photos of Amaryllis flowers that I took at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens twice upon a time, within the past few weeks. The previous post is Amaryllis! Amaryllis! (1 of 3).

I took the photographs of the white Amaryllis in June, and took the rest just this week. The ones I took this week — while they resemble those in my first post — show off more saturated red, pink, and magenta colors. It’s mildly intriguing to me that the lighter colored flowers of the same family often appear a few weeks before those with richer colors, and having seen this same growth pattern several years in a row, I guess it might mean something. They are also less translucent — more light is absorbed by the flower petals than passes through, giving them a thicker appearing texture — so I wonder if they’ve evolved to better handle the long, hot (very damn hot!) days of a southern July than the varieties that bloom in early to middle June.

Thanks for taking a look!

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From “In a Quiet Light” in Amaryllis by Starr Ockenga:

“Looking through the lens of a camera at a flower is intoxicating, particularly close up as it morphs from reality into abstraction.…

“Besides being seduced by the plant as a subject for my camera, I also became curious about its history. What does the name amaryllis mean? In what tropical paradise did its ancestors originate? What plant hunters’, botanists’, and breeders’ names are linked to it? Where and how is the bulb propagated today? How is its anatomy defined? What is the plant’s range of color and form? What is the best way to grow it, and under what conditions can it be rejuvenated year after year?”

From “Amaryllis” in The English Flower Garden by William Robinson:

“Amaryllis: Showy bulbous tropical plants, few of the species of which are hardy, though the beautiful Belladonna Lily (A. belladonna) may be grown well in the open air…. It is a noble bulbous plant from the Cape of Good Hope, from 1 feet to 3 feet high, blooming late in summer, the flowers, as large as the white Lily, and of delicate silvery rose in clusters on stout, leafless stems, arising from the large pear-shaped bulbs….

“If planted in autumn, or at any time during the winter, it will be well to protect them from severe weather by half-rotten leaves, coconut fibre, or fern. The plants begin to push forth their new leaves early in spring, and upon the freedom with which they send forth these during summer the bloom in the autumn depends.”

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Hello!

This is the first of three posts featuring photos of Amaryllis buds and blooms that I took at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens on two separate visits. The photos in this post are from mid-June, which seems like the optimal blooming time for these large pink and magenta variations, as well as a few white ones that I’ll include in the next post. The second and third posts will also include some I took just yesterday — on one of the few July days when it was not raining or so humid it felt like walking through rainclouds — when I found a batch of late-bloomers showing off deep red and purple flowers, instead of the lighter pink/magenta or white you see here.

Amaryllis is among the many plants often mischaracterized as lilies (see List of plants known as lily for lots of others) — and I mention this only because I too thought they were lilies until a couple of years ago. The appearance of the opened flowers is very lily-like; but mostly I mis-knew them because they’re often referred to as “swamp lilies” — a common name I recognized. And actually it’s crinum — a member of the Amaryllis family — to which “swamp lily” is frequently applied, though it’s quite a challenge to differentiate between amaryllis as an Amaryllis-family variety and crinum when you didn’t plant the plants yourself.

Thanks for taking a look!

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