It is a pleasure to offer the accompanying photograph as the first ever published of a rare and beautiful American bulb, the white variety of the American Belladonna, now known botanically as Amaryllis belladonna, var. barbara.
This is a native of the West Indies and the Caribbean area, and the white form is reported exclusively from the Guianas.
American Belladonna’s Photograph
The bulb in the photograph came from British Guiana, and the only specimen previously reported in literature originated in Surinam (Dutch Guiana) in northern South America.
The snapshot was taken by the writer early in World War II, while he was engaged in work other than horticultural pursuits, and was promptly forgotten. It came to light among some neglected papers the other day.
Amaryllis Belladonna’s Feature
Amaryllis belladonna is a widely spread species, variety major, a rich orange-red, being found by thousands all over the Florida peninsula, probably an early introduction from some of the West Indies islands.
No bulbs of the Guiana white form, one of the most attractive of all Amaryllis, have ever been reported from Florida gardens.
Recently, M. B. Foster of Orlando, Fla., plant explorer, author, and Bromeliad specialist, brought back several dozen more of this white American Belladonna.
Amaryllis belladonna (synonym Hippeastrum equestre) is an aristocratic bulb with a venerable lineage going back in literature to Hermann (“Paradisi Batavi Prodromus”), 1689.
Amaryllis Dubia
The variety barbata is almost as classic, having been figured by Dean William Herbert in his “Amaryllidaceae,” 1837, from a dried specimen in the Linnaean herbarium.
Herbert reports of this bulb, which he gave specific rank, without ever having seen a living specimen (page 409 of his “Amaryllidaceae”). This plant was called Amaryllis dubia by Linnaeus (“Amoenitates”), not intending dubia to be its specific name, but because he was in doubt about the plant.
It is a remarkable instance of the very vague ideas then entertained of generic characteristics that after having referred the plant to Merian’s Hippeastrum equestre, from which it is principally distinguished by its white instead of an orange limb, he should, at last, have called it in his Herbarium a Crinum, for no other reason than its agreeing with those he knew in color.
No other writer has noticed the plant and has never been brought to Europe.”
This coming from Herbert, who took some of the greatest liberties in all botany with the genus Amaryllis himself, is certainly interesting and worth mentioning in the 20th century, given recent Amaryllis-Hippeastrum botanical arguments.
In other words, the previous botanical history of this bulb is limited to a single specimen that some collector sent to Linnaeus from Surinam, which he cited as “Amaryllis dubia” in his “Amoenitates,” 8:254, and later classified as Crinum barbatum in manuscript in his herbarium.
The Latin description of Herbert’s species Hippeastrum barbatum is on page 138 of his “Amaryllidaceae.” He mentions “flowers three or more.”
The present subject had just three blooms on the scapes. The petal texture is delicate, milky white, with a creamy star in the center, changing to greenish in the depth of the throat, which has a fringe or fimbriation which explains the varietal name of barbatum (bearded).
Barbatum Variety
The bulbs of variety barbatum in the writer’s experience are slow growing and stubborn. Only a few have ever bloomed.
No seeds have ever been set, but this does not mean it could not happen. Bulbs of A. belladonna var. major set seed with difficulty and then only to hand pollination.
The bulbs of the barbatum variety are small, up to two inches in diameter, and delicately constitutional.
The flower is closer to the scarlet forms of the American belladonna than to the var. major as found in Florida. The petals are rather loose and informal, not stiffly erect.
44659 by Wyndham Hayward