Hippeastrum papilio
Big and blowsy, the florist's Amaryllis are highly bred cultivars of South American Hippeastrum bulbs. Definitely decorative as house and greenhouse plants and easy to prepare and flower for Christmas or the early new year they are very popular at this time of year. But they do lack a little elegance.
Enter the butterfly Amaryllis, Hippeastrum papilio.
Heavily marked with red streaks and flashes against a green and cream base, it lacks the flamboyance of its blowsier cousins but more than makes up for it in elegance.
I bought my plant a couple of years ago as a potful of small bulbs from Plant World, Devon. It's taken a little while to build up to flowering size but the end result has been well worthwhile.
Care and maintenance has been surprisingly simple. Unlike it's larger cousins it's almost evergreen and doesn't need a dormant period in autumn to trigger flowering. Mine goes outside for the warmer months and onto a sunny windowsill for the colder months. A regular feeding regime - I use a high potash liquid tomato fertiliser - keeps the plant in good health. Offset bulbs are regularly produced to generate a thicket of strap like leaves outwith the flowering period. A decent size pot is needed to accomodate it's offset producing habit - but not too big, the roots do need some restriction.
Endangered in the wild, but readily available in cultivation, it's definitely worth the time and effort to grow. The results are their own reward.
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