Ammocharis is a genus in the Amaryllidaceae family from Sub-Saharan Africa that has 6 species. Some species are winter growing and others are summer growing. The end of each leaves is blunt, resulting from the self-cleaving of the leaves as the plant goes into dormancy. This gives the impression that someone came through and snipped the ends of with a pair of scissors.
Ammocharis angolensis is native from Angola to Uganda.
Ammocharis baumii was first described as a Crinum but has since been reclassified as an Ammocharis. It is native to Angola, Namibia and South Africa and found only on the margins of seasonally wet depressions in grassland and veld. This species forms solitary, naturally small bulbs, usually less than 2cm in diameter. Its narrow leaves are 1-2mm in width and glossy. Ammocharis baumii produces only one flower per bulb, per blooming. This spidery flower is held erect, providing a striking silhouette. The 10cm wide flower opens white and within 12 hours of opening takes on a decidedly bright pink cast with even the perianth tube turning this cheerful colour. The 5-6cm long, recurving tepals are u-shaped in cross section (4mm) The peduncle is short, usually under 2cm and the perianth tube 10cm in length.
Despite having been described over a century ago, Ammocharis baumii remains rare in cultivation outside of its native range. Seed is always very scarce and the bulbs take 6+ years to reach blooming size from seed. In habitat the mature bulbs remain dormant during the cool, dry winters and leaves emerge in late spring when rains arrive. In good years mature bulbs can bloom 2-3 times between spring and summer. It is believed that in order to produce good blooms each year, A. baumii requires a totally dry rest in winter, contrasted by a hot summer with full force of full sun and with intermittent watering to wake it from its slumber, followed when in active growth by deep watering every 10-14 days, allowing the potting media to dry out almost completely between waterings.
Jacob Knecht has found that Ammocharis baumii grows well outdoors in full sun in Honolulu, Hawai'i where it remains evergreen year-round if it is never allowed to dry out. Under these moist, warm tropical conditions A. baumii is remarkably tolerant of very high humidity (70% rh+) and of high rainfall (3550mm pa) when grown in 100% coarse horticultural pumice. He hasn't yet bloomed the plants under these conditions (however these plants weren't yet blooming size).
Photos by Jacob Knecht below show this species flowering in the collection of Jacob Knecht and Nhu Nguyen in Berkeley, California.
Ammocharis coranica, known as the Karoo Lily, occurs throughout the Karoo and its range extends into the eastern grassland of the summer rainfall area of South Africa at altitudes between 700 and 1500 metres (2200-5000 ft) on flats or in depressions which are seasonally wet, although its habitat is characterised by lengthy dry periods and severe droughts. It extends into Zimbabwe through to Kenya in east Africa. Leaves are arranged in a parallel fashion with the tip of the old leaves truncated, marked by the point where the plant goes dormant in the previous year. Cameron McMaster has provided extremely interesting information about this species in a PBS list post.
This species is one of the easier species to grow. Seeds germinate easily in cultivation. A choice mix is something well drained with good organic matter (~1:1). Bulbs can grow rather large and will need free root-run before blooming. While in leaf, it responds well to fertilizers and will continue growing until the weather is cool enough for it to enter dormancy. It takes full advantage of water and will break dormancy immediately whenever water is available. After a dry winter dormancy, it only takes 3 days after watering to produce green growths of new leaves! When it dries out, it will go back into dormancy and await the next watering.
Jacob Knecht has found that found Ammocharis coranica grows well outdoors in full sun in Honolulu, Hawai'i where it remains evergreen year-round if it is never allowed to dry out. There it is remarkably tolerant of very high humidity (70% rh+) and of high rainfall (3550mm pa) when grown in 100% coarse horticultural pumice. Under these moist, warm tropical conditions if the leaves are allowed to hang without touching the ground, they can elongate to 1m in length or more. He hasn't yet bloomed mature plants under these conditions and isn't sure if this is due to lack of winter chilling, as the temperatures generally remained between 60-90°F / 15-32°C year-round.
Photos below from Cameron McMaster show this species flowering after fire in grassland in the Cathcart District, flowering in habitat, growing in association with Nerine huttoniae in stony Karoo flats, and in fruit in the Willowmore district of the Karoo.
More photos from Bob Rutemoeller and Mary Sue Ittner showing the habitat and flowering in a Karoo-Namib shrubland vegetation of the Eastern Cape in a very dry year.
Photos below by Christiaan van Schalkwyk show this species in habitat, about 30 km west of Kimberley, South Africa. When in flower they form red pockets of colour in the veld. The flowers open from the outside inwards, about an hour before sunset. If watched closely one can see the actual opening (bursting!) of the buds. The last photo was taken late in the evening, just after the new flowers opened, and show the new lighter and the older darker flowers. This picture was taken in my garden, where the bulbs receive 25 minutes of sprinkler water every sixth day. They bloom regularly, some bulbs up to four times a season. They originally grew in a Kimberley suburb in association with Ipomoea bolusii, a Brachystelma sp., Boophone disticha, and other bulbous species in between grass. Unfortunately this area is now a high density housing complex.
Photo 1 by Rogan Roth shows an unusual white-flowered form growing in the collection of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Photo 2 by Jacob Knecht shows a ruby-coloured clone that was acquired as Ammocharis tinneana ex Kenya, neither of which turned out to be true. It keys out as A. coranica, which isn't recorded as native from that country. Photo 3 by Nhu Nguyen shows the foliage of the species when grown in full springtime sun in Berkeley, California. Photos 4-5 by Jacob Knecht depict the species grown in Honolulu, Hawai'i.
Ammocharis longifolia (syn. Cybistetes longifolia) was once considered to be a single species in the genus Cybistetes, is a winter growing species found on sandy or gravelly floats in the northwest and southwest Cape of South Africa to Namibia. Flowers are ivory to deep pink and strongly scented. It has spreading leaves arranged in a rosette that have a cutoff appearance when mature but differs in having a specialized fruiting head in which the pedicels elongate, stiffen and spread, and radiate outward, turning it into a tumbling seedhead that drops seeds as the capsules open as it rolls. For more information about this species, see the SANBI reference.
The flowers of the first plant pictured below open whitish and then become pink-flushed, while the ivory coloured one often remains the same colour or fades to very pale pink. They are about 3 inches long, almost as wide, and strongly reflexed. There may be 20 or more of these sweetly fragrant flowers in a single umbel, which is borne on a fleshy stalk less then 12 inches (30cm) high. In the Cape they bloom during the summer months with the latest flowers appearing in the higher rainfall areas. The bulbs are quite large, the leaves are prostrate on the soil surface and grow quite long. They prefer a well drained sandy soil with the bulb neck planted at soil surface and dry summers. The first two photographs from Bill Dijk. The others were taken by Andrew Harvie. The third photograph shows the leaves in the Tienie Versfeld Reserve near Darling, western Cape, South Africa. Photos four to six show the first flowering in his Australian garden in 2011 from a 2000 sowing. This is an opportunistic plant and he suspects it was responding to a week of summer rain.
Ammocharis nerinoides is endemic to northern, north-eastern and eastern Namibia where it grows in seasonally inundated river beds. The plants bloom in mid-November (summer). Flowers are very fragrant, blooms in the evening and are short lived (about 3 days). In cultivation, this species require a completely dry winter dormancy. Flowers often appear in late spring-summer (May-July). Bulbs should be planted with the top of the neck at soil level in a very well-drained medium with low organic matter (~20 organic). Give the plants full sun or at least a very bright area. Terracotta pots are choice, although plastic can be used. Water only when the soil is almost completely dried (about once every 10 days in plastic pots). Plants are self fertile and seeds mature in 4-5 weeks. Under ideal conditions, plants will flower in 4 years (Duncan 2003, 2005).
Jacob Knecht has found that A. nerinoides seedlings grow well outdoors in full sun in Honolulu, Hawai'i and remain evergreen year-round if never allowed to dry out. Under these conditions they are remarkably tolerant of very high humidity (70% rh+) and of high rainfall (3550mm pa) when grown in 100% coarse horticultural pumice. Dylan Hannon reports that in Southern California A. nerinoides is a dependable species so long as it is grown in a sandy well-drained mix and kept on the dry side in winter; some autumn and even early winter rains are not harmful. Flowers appear in July. It can be expected to prosper in the warmer cismontane valleys rather than the immediate coast. As mentioned in Duncan's Grow Bulbs this species can flower in a relatively short time from seed, whereas the more popular A. coranica seems to stay in a perpetually juvenile state in container culture here and flowering seed-grown plants are rarely seen. Photos 1-6 below show material originally collected in Namibia: Gobabis District: Farm Okaseko grown and photographed by Dylan Hannon.
Ammocharis tinneana The range of this species includes a large number of sub-Saharan countries including Rwanda, Zaire, Chad, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. Plants in habitat flower from mid November to January (Southern Hemisphere) only after a good rainstorm. Temperatures at this time often reach above 40C. Plants can sometimes flower twice in a season after breaking dormancy, going back into dormancy and then flowering again with the next rainfall but usually without a flush of leaves (Craib and Brown 1998).
Jacob Knecht has found that Ammocharis tinneana seedlings grow well outdoors in full sun in Honolulu, Hawai'i and remain evergreen year-round if never allowed to dry out. Under these conditions they are remarkably tolerant of very high humidity (70% rh+) and of high rainfall (3550mm pa) when grown in 100% coarse horticultural pumice.