Boophane disticha x Amaryllis belladonna

2nd year bloom for 6 year old cross of Boophane Disticha x Amaryllis belladonna. Aug 3, 2006, San Diego, CA

Beginning to open. smells more like Boophane than A. belladonna Aug 3, 2006, San Diego CA

Aug 5, 2006. Bloom maturing. Slightly darker pink than 2 days ago.

Aug 5, 2006. I placed a cut bloom of an ordinary A. belladonna next to the hybrid (on the left) for comparison.

Aug 6, 2006. I seems the older individual flowers are darker pink. The mother Boophane also showed this tendency.

Aug 6, 2006. Close up. Initially, I thought it was not producing pollen.

Aug 5, 2006. I've noticed today 2 of the other 5 bulbs of the same cross beginning to send up scapes!

Aug 6, 2006. It appears another scape arising from the top of the same bulb immediately next to the first scape

I was surprised to see this bloom beginning so early in the season on this summer-growing B. disticha. (May 10, 2006)

Ken Blackford (August 5, 2006)
San Diego

The mother (B. distica) of my 6 plants which appear to be crosses with A belladonna was a bulb I bought at the Univ of Calif Irvine's June, 2000 summer bulb sale in a 1 gallon container. I brought it home and to my surprise it sent up a bud/bloom almost immediately. I knew little and posted a query on the IBS' public forum. Several people responded, indicating B. disticha was not self fertile. At the time, I knew nobody else nearby who might have a blooming B. disticha. Still, I was hopeful for seed so that I might expand my small collection. Someone suggested if I had another amaryllid in bloom, I might try to cross pollinate. I did have a lot of both ordinary and multiflora-type A belladonnas. June is usually too early for them to bloom here in San Diego, but one of the plain belladonnas sent up an early bud and bloomed concurrent with the B. disticha. After reading a comment by Richard Doubt that better luck might be obtained with intergeneric hybridization during cooler temps ... each morning at the crack of dawn, before heading off for work, I religiously brushed half the B. disticha florets/stigmas with A. belladonna pollen and the other half with its own pollen. I continued this every day for almost two weeks. Morning temps here that time of year are almost consistently 58-62 degrees ... and foggy ... we call it "June gloom". Night and morning air temps are generally the same as that of the water in the nearby Mission Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

None of the self-pollinated florets set seed. I believe I got 48 or 49 seeds from the florets where I had used the A. belladonna pollen. Almost all germinated successfully. Two of the seedlings displayed the blue-gray leaf color of the mother plant, all others were more typical green of A. belladonna. I posted another query on the IBS forum as to whether or not the blue-gray seedlings might be parthenogenetic (?) ... but received no responses. I let the seedlings grow in small 3" pots outside during the winter and watered with rain water as tap water here is fairly salty. Unfortunately, inattention and several trips that winter to my native Michigan allowed a mealy bug infestation to get out of hand. The mealies seemed to especially love these seedlings and did not seem to bother neighboring plants. I lost all but six of the seedlings - the remaining plants were all the green form. Growth of these seemed to struggle but the leaf growth appeared distichous like the mother. I placed in the ground the second year ... perhaps a mistake as they continued to struggle. Last winter several did put out several more (6-10) leaves and remained distichous. I've noticed some A. belladonnas display this habit as seedlings but seem to lose this by their 3rd year.

I tend to grow my plants 'hard' and until this year have not used fertilizers.

I was quite surprised with the bloom I had last summer. However, the stem was twisted and bent in two places so that it bloomed at almost a 90 degree angle. The florets were not nearly as numerous as the mother plant ... but larger and not held tightly together like the mother. I also detected an odor from the flowers similar to that of the mother plant ... somewhat spicy, almost chemical-like, as a pesticide. My A. belladonnas tend to have a sweeter scent. I was again in Michigan while its blooms initially opened and perhaps missed the peak pollinating period, as no seed developed. I tried by its own pollen and that of nearby ordinary A. belladonnas, again in the early AM hours.

So far this winter, 5 of the six plants are showing more rubust leaf growth with 12-18 leaves and continue to show the distichous arrangement. I am hopeful for more blooms next summer and will keep you posted!

Jan 13, 2005 - Winter growing B. disticha. Note summer growing B. disticha in upper left rear of photo.

I have noticed some of my B. distichas seem to grow in the winter and go dormant in the summer, while others show the reverse growth habit ... outdoors here in San Diego and all within feet of each other. Do others experience these different growing patterns?

They receive minimal water all summer long and only supplemental water in the winter if normal winter rains do not materialize. Still some seem to definitely grow during the winter at the same time others go dormant, while the summer growers seem to do so without water. I have had no frost here that I might blame for leaf withering of the summer growers.

Ken Blackford (Jan 17, 2006)
San Diego

This is the mother plant of the boophane x amaryllis cross pictured.

Ken Blackford (Feb 5, 2006)
San Diego