an ambiguous hybrid
Garden
and
Forest
244: 513
October 26, 1892
THE BELLADONNA LILY - I have more than once written
of this plant as one of the first attractions in the borders at Kew and
a few other English gardens in autumn. There are now several hundred spikes
of flowers on a south border against the Orchid-house here, where they make
a rich glow of rose-red color. I write now to recommend growers of bulbs
in America to take up the Belladonna and raise it from seeds. Hitherto we
have relied solely on bulb offsets for the multiplication of this plant,
consequently we have not improved it at all. That it is capable of considerable
improvement by means of seeds and selection is evident from a plant, a seedling,
flowering at Kew now. This plant was obtained several years ago as a probable
hybrid between the Belladonna and Brunsvigia Josephinae. On flowering,
however, it proves that the supposed cross did not take place, the plant
being unquestionably a pure Belladonna. But such a Belladonna! The scape
is as thick as a man's thumb, a yard high, and it bears an umbel of twelve
flowers all open together, half as large again as the ordinary form, and
colored a rich rose-red, very nearly crimson. Every one who has seen this
plant declares it the finest Belladonna Lily ever seen. We propose to call
it Kewense. Worsley
Gardeners'
Chronicle
(London)
29: (1901)
reprinted
Herbertia
1:57-58 (1934)
At one time, as far as I could gather from various sources, it had come to the Royal Gardens as an unflowered supposed hybrid between Brunsvigia josephinae and Amaryllis belladonna. Its supposed parentage did not carry it through the critical examination to which it was subject on flowering. But still, there it was—a live thing that was not Amaryllis belladonna, and yet could claim no ascertained parentage.
And so it got called A. kewensis. And certainly, as a commemorative name, its splendid inflorescence, unmatched among the Amaryllids for fragrance and beauty, entitled it to be associated with the Royal Gardens.
Yet I am of opinion that had this plant been claimed as an ascertained hybrid of Brunsvigia and Amaryllis by some authority, such claims could not have been overlooked: for it shares in many respects the characters of both suggested parents. Among the five kinds of Brunsvigia and Amaryllis in my garden, all bears seeds freely.
