As a boy, Hans Sloane (1660-1753) suffered a severe illness that lasted three years. By giving up wine and leading a temperate life, he recovered and went to England to study medicine at the Apothecaries' Hall and at their garden at Chelsea. Here he became acquainted with Robert Boyle and John Ray. He went abroad in 1683 and studied botany in Paris under Tournefort, and with Magnol in Montpellier. Returning to London in 1684, he gave his collection of rare French specimens to Ray, who included them in his Historia Plantarum published two years later. They remained friends until Ray's death in 1705.

Sloane left England again 19 September 1687, traveling as personal physician to the Duke of Albemarle who had been made Governor of Jamaica. He was sea-sick for the first month. They visited Madeira (21-23 Oct.), Barbados (25 Nov.- 5 Dec.) and St. Kitts (9-11 Dec.) on the way, reaching Jamaica on the 19th of December. These dates are according to the Julian calendar. At that time the discrepancy was 10 days—so the stop in Madeira was 31 Oct-2 Nov by modern reckoning.

The Duke took ill shortly after arriving in Jamaica, and died the following year. In March 1689 Sloane accompanied the Duchess back to England, carrying an enormous stock of plant and animal specimens—including 800 specimens of plants, many drawings, a crocodile, a big lizard, and a seven foot yellow snake. (The crocodile died, the lizard jumped overboard, and the snake was shot after it escaped from a large earthen water-jar.)

In 1696 he published his Catalogue of the Flora of Jamaica which included his description of the West Indies Red Lily, "Lilio-Narcissus polyanthos, flore incarnato, fundo ex luteo-albiscente". He cited Du Tertre (1667), Hermann (1689) and others as having described the same plant.

In 1707 he published the first volume of Voyage to the Islands Madeira, Barbadoes, Nieves, St Christopher, and Jamaica, with a Natural History of the Herbs and Trees, Four-Footed Beasts, Fishes, Birds, Insects, Reptiles, &c of the last of these Islands. In this work he cited Hermann's figure of the elegantly scarlet "Lilium americanum, puniceo flore, Bella Donna dictum" of 1698. He also referred to the orange "Lys des Antilles" of Rochefort in both works.

Sloane Hist. pp. 244-245: The root of this is no larger than that of a great onion, or the half of one's fist, a little oblong, made up of many white tunicles or coats, including one another, after the manner of onions, having under its base many whitish fibers drawing its nourishment. The leaves are one foot long, an inch and a half broad, juicy, of a very fresh green colour, blunt, round, or obtuse at their ends, channel'd or furrowed toward the stem or inwards. The stalk rises from the leaves, being one foot and a half high, hollow, of about one quarter of an inch diameter, sustaining on its top several flowers going out of, or inclosed in a membranous sheath or follicle bow'd back, or hanging down by two inches long foot-stalks. Each of the flowers is wide open, of a yellowish and white colour in the middle, and of a Carnation, or pale red the rest, having in its center several reddish and yellow stamina.
     It is planted along walks sides for ornament in gardens, and comes from Barbados, where it is wild. It is said likewise to grow wild in gullies here, and to come from Surinam.

Sloane purchased the land occupied by the Chelsea Physick Garden in 1722, and appointed Philip Miller as director. The first edition of Miller's The Gardeners Dictionary came out two years later, and included three "Narcissus of Japan," but no "Belladonna". In 1731, Miller described the Red Lily of Sloane, two plants called "Belladonna" (Portuguese and Italian), as well as the plant Lamarck would name Amaryllis striata (though it disappeared from later editions of the Dictionary).

In the Gardeners Dictionary (1731), Miller wrote that Sloane's Red Lily

is very common in the Barbadoes, St. Christopher's, and the other warm islands of the West Indies; but at present is very rare in England: This sort is much tenderer than either of the former [Italian Belladonna and Atamasco], and will require to be kept in a Hot-bed of Tanners Bark, in order to produce Flowers. The Roots of this Plant may be very easily brought from the West-Indies, if they are taken up immediately after their Leaves decay, and sent over in a Box dry, for if they are planted in Tubs of Earth, they generally rot in their Passage, by receiving too great Quantities of Water.

Linnaeus cited Sloane's description in Hortus Cliffortianus (1738) along with other descriptions and plates that clearly indicate the plant from the American tropics. He took the same description into Species Plantarum (1753) where he used the binomial Amaryllis Belladonna for first time.

Other species have been called "Bella Donna" or some variant, including "La Belladone" which Barrelier gave as a name for Sprekelia formosissima, and Lamarck's "La Belladonne jaune de Afrique" for Lycoris aurea. The Portuguese "Bella Donna lily", with 3-4 pale flowers, was presumably Ferrari's "Diluto", the "Donna Bella falsa" of his Italian edition. Ferrari's "true" Donna Bella (Donna Bella detto) had caa. 20 flowers per scape. Linnaeus followed the Dutch usage which went back at least to 1689 when Hermann called the American plant Lilium Americanum puniceo flore Bella Donna dictum. Since Sloane included this phrase-name under his description of the "Red Lily", the first English mention of a "Belladonna" is in connection with the Barbados Lily. Only after Bradley's Dictionarium Botanicum of 1728 did the name become associated with the Cape plants in England: the Bella Donna from Portugal, or Damascus Lilly.

By 1744, Sloane was reported to have collected the multi-flowered Cape Belladonna in Barbados, and that his description of the Red Lily pertained to this plant rather than to the West Indies Red Lily. Sloane's published description stated that the Red Lily had a hollow stalk, which excludes the Cape Belladonna in all its varieties.

George Ehret (who married Philip Miller's sister-in-law) painted the Italian Belladonna in 1744 as "Lilio-Narcissus Americanus Belladona dictus par. bat.", which identified this plant with Hermann's "Lilium Americanum puniceo flore Bella Donna dictum" described and illustrated in Paradisus Batavus (1698). Seligmann printed a version of this painting around 1766 labeled "Lilio-narcissus Belladonna". No such flower was ever brought back from the West Indies, as Miller admitted.

Jakob Trew provided paintings from his collection for the Hortus Nitidissimis, but was otherwise not involved in its production.

In 1746, Peter Collinson wrote to him and sent a package of bulbs including, "Red Mexico Lilie (vulgo). But they are found in all Our Islands and are undoubtedly what Sir Hans Sloane mentions in his History of Jamaica."

Around this time Ehret also made a watercolor sketch of the Red Lily with Linnaeus's phrase-name for the Barbados Lily from Hortus Cliffortianus. Curiously, Robert Morison's name for the 8-flowered Italian Belladonna, Lilio-Narcissus; Indicus, saturato colore purpurascens, was added at some other time. A fully colored version of this painting was later printed by Seligman as "West Indische rothe Lilie", Lilio-narcissus Mexicanus. Part of the confusion is due to the fact that Ehret mistakenly followed Plukenet in supposing that Lilio-Narcissus Indicus saturato colore purpurascens and Aldinus' Lilio-Narcissus rubeus Indicus were the same plants. However, Plukenet thought they were both Cape Belladonnas; Ehret, as we see, thought they were both the West Indies Belladonna.

Miller's 1760 edition of Figures of Beautiful Plants was printed with the descriptions of the two Belladonnas reversed. Linnaeus knew Latin but could not read English. The pictures were separately numbered, so Linnaeus naturally understood those numbers to apply to the plates in the appendix of Species Plantarum 2nd edition (1762). Miller gave Hermann's phrase-name, and mentioned the Lilium Reginae of Douglass along with the picture of the Cape Belladonna.

In the various editions of his Dictionary, Miller gave a list of the plants in each genus with Latin phase-names, English translations and the common names. Detailed descriptions and cultural instructions were printed separately. If Linnaeus had read the 1759 edition, for example, he would have concluded that "Belladonna lily" was the common name in England for Sloane's Jamaican Red Lily. English readers, however, could read the extended discussion to learn that a Cape Belladonna had become associated with Sloane's phrase-name.

In Species Plantarum 2nd edition (1762) Linnaeus included the new species, Amaryllis reginae, citing Hermann's name as well as Miller's plate 24 (Pink). Because of the confusion, Lilium Reginae provided the name even though it had been intended for a form of Scarlet Belladonna. Plate 23 (Scarlet) was listed under A. Belladonna along with the familiar Sloane and Hort. Cliff. references. After the book was published, he wrote an enlarged description of A. belladonna in his own copy mentioning the ciliated petal bases shown in one of Hill's plates. This new description was published, with minor changes, in Mantissa Plantarum (1767 & 1771).

It should be noted that Linnaeus (1762) arranged his citations just as he saw them in Miller's misprinted 1760 edition of Figures..., and referred to the numbers on the pictures themselves:

Miller accepted the new names as Linnaeus gave them, and published them in 1768. He must not have fully understood the nature of the confusion since he reversed the citations. He also "corrected" Linnaeus's spelling. Perhaps he was unwilling to give up the misidentification of Sloane's plant. This time he did not mention "Lilium Reginae" under either species:

In 1783 Lamarck identified his Amaryllis punicea as the plant Linnaeus had called "Belladonna" even though, he noted, it was not the "true Belladonna of the Italians." The latter plant he named Amaryllis rosea, which he identified with the Amaryllis regina of Linnaeus. He correctly suggested that Hermann's description belonged with punicea.

Lamarck seems to have been the last botanist to get the matter sorted out properly.

Sloane was notoriously inconsistent, and spun wild yarns about the oddities in his collection. I have found no suggestion that these qualities extended to his botanical work. However, he did not publish this new identification.It previously seemed possible that Sloane had confused Madeira with Barbados 50 years after the fact. The "Rubra Bicolor" form of the Cape Belladonna has reportedly been grown in Madeira for centuries. However, I can find no reference in his Voyage to such a plant being collected there, and his visit was probably too late in the season. By 1731 Miller had the Red Lily of Sloane, which was clearly distinguished from the autumn flowering 'Belladonna lily' and Italian Belladonna.

Ehret confused the Italian Belladonna with the "elegantly scarlet" Belladonna of Hermann, as mentioned above. How this came about remains a mystery, but one possibility comes to mind.

1) Bradley introduced the name "Belladonna" for the Cape plants in 1728, long after Sloane cited Hermann's "Belladonna" in 1696.

2) People sometimes asked German-born Ehret what language he spoke, and were sceptical when he claimed it was English.

3) Sloane was an obliging host who happily shared his collection and his with his many guests.

Another possibility is that the specimens were mixed. In The Sloane Herbarium, J.E. Dandy wrote:

In a letter from Ray to Sloane dated 13th September 1699, the former apologizes for having got certain collections somewhat mixed up during the time he was naming them. Instructions to the binder appear in notes still retained in certain volumes. This casual trusting to a binder to mount specimens correctly is no doubt responsible for some of the anomalies to be found in the Herbarium.

No one, to my knowledge, has previously bothered to seek the beginning of the confusion. Rather they have cited and counter-cited endlessly. No one, aside from Herbert, has seriously doubted that Amaryllis Belladonna of Species Plantarum was based on the description published in Hortus Cliffortianus. Unfortunately, the mention of Sloane's description has placed Linnaeus in the middle of the debate, quoted by both sides. Philip Miller accused Tournefort of error for confusing Sloane's plant with that of Hermann, despite the fact that Sloane had cited Hermann in his own publications. (Tournefort was one of Sloane's teachers.) Subsequent authors have similarly accused Linnaeus of being a slipshod worker who ignored the specimens he was allegedly describing. The simplest explanation, and the one closest to the available facts, is that Sloane was involved in the mistake. At least there is no indication of the confusion before Sloane retired from public life and moved back to Chelsea.

One of the results of this research into the origin of the confusion is the surprising discovery that Linnaeus was not in error when he referred to a picture of the Pink Belladonna in his description of Amaryllis reginae. The evidence is consistent. Ehret (1744) painted the Pink Belladonna, referring it to Hermann's Scarlet Belladonna. Miller's misprinted Figures... (1760) inadvertently confirmed Ehret's identification, and suggested the name Lilium Reginae. Linnaeus accepted what he assumed to be a botanical decision, giving the new combination Amaryllis reginae for the Pink Belladonna. He cited Hermann, as Ehret did and Miller seemed to have done. Miller (1768) accepted Linnaeus' names—Amaryllis Belladonna for the Scarlet, Amaryllis regina for the Pink—though he reversed the citations. Lamarck (1783) verified the identifications of Linnaeus, but correctly moved Hermann back to the Scarlet Belladonna, and added legitimate references for the Cape Belladonna. There is no room for doubt since all three writers referred to the same pictures.

Miller died in 1771 leaving Thomas Martyn to edit that year's edition of Figures..., which did not use the Linnaean binomials. Martyn seems to have drawn from an earlier version, even using capital letters for all nouns—which had not been done in the 1768 edition. Also there is a discussion of the anomalous Spring flowering Cape Belladonna imported in 1754. If this was not a permanent variety, as Herbert and Hannibal have claimed, it should have adjusted its bloomtime long before the 1771 edition was compiled.

L'Héritier (1788) reversed the names, correctly attaching Sloane's phrase-name to the American Belladonna, but leaving Hort. Cliff. with the African. This is ironic since it was Sloane's error that led to the original misapplication of the Hort. Cliff. phrase-name.

Aiton followed suit in the Hortus Kewensis (1789), and added further confusion by combining the Scarlet Belladonna of Merian with the white flowered Amaryllis dubia (Hippeastrum barbatum) as Amaryllis equestris.

Linnaeus had a falling out with his son, and as a result he bequeathed his herbarium to his wife with the stipulation that their son should not have it "as he never helped me in botany, and has no love for it." Junior (Linn. fils) was enraged by the slight, and sought revenge in botany. He went to Kew in England where he rearranged names and revived pre-Linnaean synonyms wherever possible.

In Hortus Cliffortianus Linnaeus had written that all the Amaryllis species are very beautiful, but that the Scarlet Belladonna was without equal. This is the plant he named Amaryllis Belladonna. His son renamed it equestris, which is blatantly insulting to the plant and to Linnaeus. This work of Linnaeus fils was accepted by L'Héritier and Aiton.

Herbert (1819) acknowledged that Linnaeus had not described the Cape Belladonna in Hortus Cliffortianus. Later he changed his mind:

It was the exquisite blending of pink and white in the flower, as in the female complexion, that suggested the common name in Italy, and to those lovely tints Linnaeus referred, when he assigned to it the name of a beautiful woman. To suppose he would have alluded to a bright orange flower would be perfectly absurd. It is therefore quite indisputable that Belladonna is the type of the Linnaean genus Amaryllis, and it would be an idle insult to the memory of Linnaeus to remove it without cause.

Linnaeus took the name Belladonna from Hermann (1689, 1698), and no one doubts that Hermann's plant had "orange" flowers. Rochefort (1665) and Du Tertre (1665) also described the West Indies flower as "orange". Furthermore, Rochefort regarded "vermeille" (vermilion) as flesh colored (the color of the healthy complexion), which would include "incarnato". Herbert even described the similarly colored Hippeastrum stylosum as "dull orange flesh".

Herbert stated that Amaryllis belladonna must be the type of the Linnaean genus Amaryllis. Since the Cape Belladonna is Amaryllis reginae, it cannot also be A. belladonna. Nor can it be the "type" for the genus since it was added by Linnaeus only in Species Plantarum 2nd ed. in 1762.

At one time Herbert separated the Cape Belladonna as a Coburghia, along with some of the Brunsvigia species, including B. josephinae which will cross with it and give fertile offspring. He wanted to abolish the Brunsvigia of Heister (1755) in order to separate some of the species that had been placed in that genus. He admitted that his Coburghia was probably not sufficiently distinct from Brunsvigia to claim that the necessity of the new genus outweighed the "general law of priority."

He later rejected his own genus, claiming that Amaryllis belladonna (1753) referred to the Cape Belladonna. This was the historical wedge he needed to cancel Heister's genus of 1755. His ploy was unsuccessful, as few botanists have been willing to transfer Heister's type species back to Amaryllis. This has left the Cape Belladonna, Amaryllis reginae (1762), as the only "True" Amaryllis (1753).

Herbert's revision has merit, of course, as it is highly unusual to place cross-fertile species in separate genera. There has been no move to break-up Brunsvigia as he had hoped, so the most sensible course would be to accept L. S. Hannibal's suggestion to place the Cape Belladonna with its closest relatives. However, as we have seen, the name he suggested, Brunsvigia rosea, is untenable since reginae (1762) has priority over rosea (1783). By a charming coincidence, the queenly Brunsvigia reginae would become sister-species to B. josephinae, named for an empress.

The current Hippeastrum reginae is without a name since it can be neither "Hippeastrum" nor "reginae". Miller did not consistently distinguish this plant from the related Amaryllis belladonna, and Linnaeus probably would not have considered them sufficiently distinct. (He regarded Hemerocallis flavus and fulvus as permanent varieties rather than distinct species.) Later, this other Scarlet Belladonna was mistakenly given the name Linnaeus had bestowed on the Cape Belladonna. The oldest synonym I can find is Amaryllis spectabilis Lodd. (1818), which seems appropriate. However, Loddiges wrote that this "species" appeared to be intermediate between Reginae and vittata, which suggests that it was one of the x Johnsoni group.

John Hill (1774) may have been describing Douglas's Lilium Reginae under the name Amaryllis reginae. If this can be confirmed, and if one chooses to ignore Linnaeus (1762) and Miller (1768), then we might call this species Hippeastrum reginae (Hill non L. aut Mill.) Herbert.