Something about Hippeastrums

By Dr. E. Bonvia FRHS

From Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society London

1904/05 Vol. 29 pp 86 – 90

When I took up the cultivation of Hippeastrums in this country some six or seven years ago, I procured a number of bulbs from Lucknow , Holland, France and England. When they flowered I gave them names and crossed them promiscuously in order to get quantity. They were all more or less of the varieties we see at shows, but of course not as select.

The object of getting bulbs from these different countries was that hope that of some new variation turning up from these different strains, but so far those that have flowered have been somewhat disappointing as nothing startling has yet appeared, though some have been very fine. I have over two thousand seedlings of all ages. A number of the first crosses have flowered. I kept record of their parentage and of the form and colour, etc., but many of the tickets being of wood, have been lost.
However, I have up to date a record of 114 of my own seedlings, and I give herewith a list of them. As I knew the names of their parents I could easily note the likeness of either parent, or to both, or otherwise and also wrote a short description of each as it came into flower. Those of which I had lost the tickets are of course left out of this reckoning.

For the sake of brevity, I shall call the seed parent the “mother,” and the pollen parent the “ father.”

v Thus form a total of 114 seedlings:
55 took after the mother;

v 19 took after the father;

v 13 rather after the mother;

v rather after the father;

v took after both parents;

v 3 took after neither parent;

v 3 after the mother, but with modifications;

v mostly after the mother, but with the father influence;

v 5 had the colour of the mother, but the form of the father;

v 4 had the colour of the father, but the form of the mother;

v 1 had the form of the father; but the colour was different from that of both parents.

It will be seen that the preponderance of the mother’s or seed-bearers influence was great; for :

55 gave flowers much like their mother’s;

13 gave them rather like their mother’s;

24 rather like their father’s or with some modification.

It should be noted that the results I am recording were of crosses between Hippeastrums of the same species that we see at shows. But many of the attempted crosses had no result; that is, the ovules were not fertilized, and the ovary perished. They behaved very much as if no attempt had be made between different genera, or as if no fertilization had been attempted.

It is not easy to decide whether these 71 results were crosses at all, for they did not show any sign of inheritance from the father’s side. The father’s pollen may have simply stimulated the ovary and ovules into motion without entering into composition with the materials of the ovules. The ovules may in these cases have been mere bulbils, or carpel buds.

Hyacinth growers it is said, scoop out the bottom of the mother bulb, which process gives rise to the growth of small bulbils from the edges of the cut scales. The bulbils when grown to the flowering stage usually inherit the characteristics of the mother bulb. We have never been told, however, whether any sports occur among these offspring bulbils of Hyacinths.

Orchid hybridisers have noted that in their crossings the result is not infrequently identical with the mother flower. So not impossibly the Hippeastrum crosses, which have resulted in the repetition of the mother’s characteristics, may, after all, have been what are called ‘false crosses.’

Of course, in those cases where any inheritance of the fathers characteristics has occurred we must infer that the father’s part has been duly performed. In nineteen of my recorded cases the mother’s influence appears to have been wiped out, as the flowers resembled the pollen bearer.

I have never seen an ovary whose pistil had not been pollinated grow into activity; it always perishes, and in many cases it perishes in spite of the pollination.

When any variation occurs which does not suggest any influence of the father, although the flower may not be identical with that of the mother, the variation may possibly be the results of sport, such as might occur from cuttings or seed of any plant. So that it is next to impossible to determine whether the variation resulted from the fathers influence or from some other unknown cause.

In a few case the cross has inherited the colour only of the mother, while the form came from the father, or vice versa.

I have obtained some bulbs of Hippeastrum equestre, which I believe originally came from Barbados. The pollen of those that I have , which are rather difficult to flower, I have often tried on the stigma of ordinary Hippeastrums, but without result. This year, however, I succeeded in obtaining from this cross even apparently good seeds in an imperfectly developed pod, five of which have germinated. In India I obtained some fine results from crosses with H. equestre, and bulbs obtained from these, when flowered , showed unmistakable signs of features derived from that species. Their petals were not striped or feathered, but of one colour with a central equestrian star.

The stigmas of H. equestre and that of Sprekelia are identical to look at, and yet quite different from the stigmas of Hippestrums we see at shows.

I tried experiments between these two, but without result.

I have a strong plant which originally came with the name Amaryllis robusta. I have informed that it is only an intermediate form of Hippeastrum aulicum, and that H. robustum is one of its synonyms.

I have often tried to cross this with H. robustum with my ordinary Hippeastrum’s, and reversed the cross but without success.

Last year, however, I obtained thirteen apparently plump seeds from this cross, eleven of which have germinated, and are thriving plants in their second year.

I succeeded in effecting five different crosses between the ordinary Hippeastrum pollinated with H. pardinum. The pollen of this spotted Hippeastrum took very readily the first time I tried it in 1903, resulting in five full pods with numerous plump seeds. Now I have a large number of this cross thriving in their second year.

In 1901 I thought I would try other pollens of Amaryllids on the Hippeastrum stigma. I obtained several full pods from different plants of Hippestrum with the pollen of Clivia miniata. Many attempts where this pollen failed; but I obtained three pods, one of which contained six plump seeds; the other two had less. A very large proportion germinated and now of that year’s Clivia crossings I have a batch of healthy strong bulbs into their fourth year.

Then, in 1902, I obtained three more pods of this cross. It is difficult to find accommodation for them all, a large number having germinated, which are going into their third year.

In the Gardener’s Chronicle of April 5, 1902, p 230, it was stated that Mr Chapman (Captain Holford’s gardener)of Westonbirt, had effected a cross between these two genera, and that some were about to flower. I was very much interested in this, as I already effected a similar cross, We have not heard, however, what the result has been of Mr Chapman’s cross.

The cross between the Hippeastrum and the Clivia was surprising enough but I have to relate two more crosses between genera, which are still more astonishing.

In 1902, I obtained two full pods of Hippeastrum crossed with the pollen of Ixolirion tataricum; a large majority of the plump seeds germinated, and are thriving and strong plants, going into their third year.

The next cross sounds ridiculous, for in 1902 I obtained a full pod of Hippeastrum crossed with the pollen of the ‘Emperor’ daffodil! The seeds germinated well, and have made strong bulbs, going into their third year.

Now I have to record a curious result of crossing the Hippeastrum. Year after year I tried to fertilise the Hippeastrum with the pollen of Sprekelia formosissima. I failed, the fertilized ovary invariably perished so did the ovary of the Sprekelia crossed with the pollen of the Hippeastrum. However, finally in 1903 I obtained a full pod which burst showing the interior full of the usual black seeds. I pulled out the seeds and spread them on a sheet of paper, and lo and behold not one of them had an embryo in it! They were all chaff. What then was the fun of this trick on the part of the Hippeastrum – the ovary, on the application of the pollen, swelling, and making believe that it is going to be full of seed, and when it bursts it is nothing but chaff. Such make believe must often occur in nature, when an insect visits one flower after another of different genera, and dust the stigma with different polens; but there is nobody to record such interesting tricks.

Of course none of the chaffy seeds germinated.

Then in 1904, I repeated the attempt to cross these two Amaryllids. They failed outright; tow resulting in the same phenomenon of ripening of the pods and containing nothing but chaff, another had apparently some good seeds amongst the chaff, none of which germinated; yet another appeared to have three good seeds which failed to germinate.

Finally a Hippeastrum bore two pods, which had been fertilized by the Sprekelia pollen; and I am glad to say that this curious make over ceased in this case. One of the pods had forty five apparently good seeds of which five have germinated; the other had what appeared to be twenty one seeds, of which five germinated.

They are all in their young first blade, and may not survive their dormancy for this cross is a weak one; but perseverance year after year has at last been crowned with some seeds that have germinated.

If I were asked “what do you expect to get out of these crosses?” I would say “ nothing but Hippeastrums!” For my experience has been that when Hippeastrum is crossed with Hippeastrum if the thing takes the prepotency of the mother-factor, and in bigeneric crosses when they succeed, the prepotency of the mother-factor is likely to be even greater. All the individuals of these bigeneric crosses have the foliage of the Hippeastrum; and so I think , will be their flowers.

In “Indian Planting and Gardening” a writer, signing himself as G.C. from Mussoorie on September 20, 1898, declared that he had succeed in crossing the Hippeastrum with the pollen of the Sprekelia. He says, I have secured the intense colour of the Sprekelia in the form of the Hippeastrum. I may mention that not one plant on the whole collection is in the form of the Sprekelia.

Yet, when I was in Florence many years ago, I visited the Giardino Madarelli famous for its Camellia bushes. The gardener also grew the Amaryllis, or Hippeastrum as it is now called. The owner showed me a coloured drawing of one of his Amaryllises. It had exactly the form of the Sprekelia with broad petals of a white colour, slashed and veined with crimson. He kindly gave me a copy of that coloured drawing, which I sent to the “Garden,” but I do not think that it was ever reproduced in that journal. Perhaps the drawing may still be among the archives of the “Garden,” if it ever reached its editor.

The plant itself was not then in flower, but the drawing was detailed.

The flower consisted of three outer (often called sepals) and three inner petals. The three upper ones (one outer and two inner) are similarly coloured and striped, and are curved upwards. The lower three ( two outer and one inner, usually smaller ) are very often differently marked and they often project forwards like a shovel. The two outer and lower ones as broad as the upper three, are often only marked in their upper half , while may not be marked at all. The smaller and lower petals is often only faintly marked.

Of course modern florists have been endeavouring to make a regular flower of the Hippeastrum, with all the petals of equal breadth, and all equally marked. They would succeed much better, I think if they could evolve a flower looking upwards like the modern form of a Gloxinia; such a form not improbably was the original one from which the modern one looking sideways, may have resulted from insect agency. The position of the stamens and pistil, resting on the lower and usually smaller petal, with the different markings of the lower petals, would indicate that our modern Hippeastrum cam from a Sprekelia formed ancestor.

We would then have something like the following life-history of our modern Hippeastrum. First it was a regular flower looking upwards; second it was made to look sideways by insect agency, which gave it a somewhat Sprekelia form; and third, the florists are endeavoring to turn it into a regular flower again, with this difference, that they wish to keep it facing sideways, as in a pot on a stage of a glass house the beauty of its flowers can be more easily seen. But Hippeastrums are not always grown in pots. In Lucknow I grew them in the ground under the shade of trees, and in Ceylon I have seen them growing in the open border.

Taking everything into consideration with regard to these bigeneric crosses, there may be perhaps a faint chance that some of them may inherit the colour, if not the form of the male plant.

“Nothing can be known without trying,” and time will show whether among a lot of prospectively “false hybrids” something new may not turn up.

The crossed plants are all Amaryllids: this is , in Darwinian phraseology, they are descended from a common stock, during the ages through which they have existed.

I believe, according to Mendel’s law, crossings, at first, mostly take after the mother. But if these are again self fertilised their progeny may split up into the two original parent forms. Unfortunately, I have not life enough left to carry out these experiments further.

Mr C. R. Fielder stated in the “Gardeners’ Chronicle” of April 30, 1904, that it took him from 1893 to 1904, this is about eleven years to evolve a wholly white Hippeastrum. In reality it is not a pure white one, but a creamy white. I have had Hippeastrums of a milk white ground, feathered crimson. If some one, as indefatigable as Mr. Fielder, were to take these up and endeavor to eliminate the coloured feathering, he might succeed in producing a Hippeastrum of a whiteness as pure as that of snow.

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