Amaryllis – Belladonna.
Family Amaryllidaceae s.l. > Subfamily Amaryllidoideae > Tribe Amaryllideae > Subtribe Amaryllidinae.
Amaryllis is the only genus with two species – Amaryllis belladonna and A. paradisicola.
A. belladona is naturalised in Australia and known as Belladonna lily, Naked lady or Easter lily.
Amaryllis and Hippiastrum flowers are similar.
Plants sold as “amaryllis” are mostly Hippiastrum cultivars.
Hippiastrum species have hollow inflorescence stems, Amaryllis have solid ones.
The brown, round bulbs are up to 10 cm in diameter.
Strap-like deciduous leaves, in 2 ranks are up to 50 cm long and 3 cm wide.
A characteristic of the genus is that the leaves appear after the flowers.
One or two sturdy, solid, cylindrical inflorescence stalks grow from each bulb.
They are leafless, up to 60 cm long and green tinted with purplish-red.
The top of the stalk has up to 12 flowers.
The flowers are trumpet-shaped with 6 tepals up to 10 cm long.
The ends of the tepals flare out to be 9 to 10 cm across.
There is no corona.
Flowers are white, pink or mauve with red lines.
The anthers are black and large, opening by longitudinal slits to release white pollen.
The ovary is inferior and there is a single style that curves upwards.
The fruit is a capsule.
Hybrids with flowers of various sizes and shapes can be shades of pink and red, cream, pure white or magenta.
They can also have white or yellow centres, darker edges and stripes.
J.F.
