HI Robert it, it is a cross of H. Papilio and H. Cybister called Hippeastrum La Paz, here is a link where you can see the picture of it. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/… Maria from Vero Beach Fl Zone 9b 2009/2/26 Robert-E. Brasseur <r.e.brasseur@scarlet.be> > My name is Robert-Emmanuel Brasseur (Robert). I live as a retired civil > servant in Leuven, near Brussels in Belgium. I spent much of my professional > life in the tropics of Africa and Asia within de framework of rural > development projects. For hobbies I combine gardening, field botanny and > ornithology with music. > > Last winter I bought a bulb in a flower shop in Ghent (Belgium). After a > few weeks the stem gave two flowers. The colour however did not fit with the > picture fixed in the pot which looked like some Sprekelia formosissima. The > bulb made one stem with two flowers. The colour however was not like on the > picture. Instead it was variegated deep purple/brown and green. I was > puzzled but had no time to make any enquiry then. After the flowering I > repotted the bulb in a 20cm pot filled with acid chestnut forest soil. After > keeping it till mid-june in the conservatory (there are daffodil flies > around) I set the pot out in the garden. In october I put it back in the > conservatory and gave it a dry rest period at temperatures of 7 to10°C. > Early in January I brought it in-house (18 - 21°C) and watered it. This time > two stems appeared with three flowers each. Diameter of the bulb: 7.5cm; > length of the stem: 85cm (light conditions in the house are not so good); > diameter of the flowers: 15cm. Considering the flowers' shape and > specifically the funnel-like narrowing of the three lower petals I suspected > the plant to be closely related to Sprekelia. > > After receiving a tip that it could be a Hippeastrum papilio I checked > Google and found following site. > > > http://images.google.be/imgres/… > > The picture very much correspond with that of my plant. On other sites I > found however other pictures of so-called Hippeastrum papilio that present > Hippeastrum features such as broad petals. Did the few butterfly bulbs have > such rich genetic potential on their own or is it this huge variation in > features the result of (un)controled hybridization? If so the question is: > which were the shape and colour pattern of the original Hippeastrum papilio > found in Brasil's southern Atlantic Forest. > > Thanks in advance for your comments, > > Robert-E. Brasseur > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > -- Maria Eugenia Paz Blanco
