Hippeastrum puniceum (Lam.) Kuntze

• Title

  Hippeastrum puniceum (Lam.) Kuntze

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Hippeastrum puniceum (Lam.) Kuntze

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Hippeastrum puniceum Amapola Barbados Lily Family Amaryllidaceae Amaryllis Family Amaryllis punicea Lamarck, Encyclopédie Méthodique Botanique 1: 122.1783. Amaryllis equestris Aiton, Hortus Kewensis 1: 417. 1789. Hippeastrum equestre Herbert, Appendix to the Botanical Register 33. 1821. Hippeastrum puniceum Urban, Symbolae Antillarae 4: 151. 1903. The most elegant, wild, bulbous plant of Porto Rico, it grows plentifully in fields and on hillsides in moist parts of the island, conspicuous, when in bloom, by large, bright red flowers, borne at the top of a stout, leafless stem which is about as long as the narrow, basal leaves. Its distribution extends nearly throughout tropical America; the species includes several somewhat different races, some of them planted in gardens for ornament. Hippeastrum (Greek, Knight's-star) was established as a genus by the English botanist Herbert in 1821; about 60 species are known, all natives of tropical America. They are bulbous plants with long, narrow leaves, and large, funnel form, often declined or nodding flowers, usually 2 or more together on stout, upright, hollow, leafless stems (scapes). The flower-tube is long, or short, the 6 segments nearly alike; the stamens are borne on the tube, with slender filaments and narrow anthers; the 3-celled ovary contains many ovules, the style long, the stigma rounded, or 2-cleft. The globose capsule splits into 3 valves, releasing the numerous, flattened, mostly black seeds. Hippeastrum puniceum (purple-red), has globose or ovoid, brown-coated bulbs 4 or 5 centimeters long. Its strap-shaped or narrowly lance-form leaves are from 20 to 65 centimeters long, and from 2.5 to 5 centimeters wide; the round, pale scape is about 65 centimeters high, or lower, and bears from 2 to 4 flowers on stalks from 3.5 to 7 centimeters long, subtended by lance-shaped spathes; the flowers are from 8 to 12 centimeters broad, their obovate segments bright red with green bases, and longer than the stamens.