Brunsvigia

Hannon othonna@gmail.com
Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:33:31 PST
Mary Sue,
Thanks for pointing out the tumbleweed inflorescence difference. Perhaps
this correlates with the rounded seeds of Brunsvigia, versus the slightly
compressed-angled seeds of Amaryllis.

From "Cape Plants" (Goldblatt & Manning 2000) these characters are used to
separate Amaryllis from both Nerine and Brunsvigia:

1 Leaves with a prominent midrib; perianth longer than 8cm; seeds slightly
angled by compression, pink to colourless, only embryo green.... Amaryllis

1' Leaves without a midrib; flowers shorter than 8cm; seeds ovoid, usually
reddish, integument and embryo green.... Brunsvigia, Nerine, Crossyne

It is more fun to think about the relationships of plants than to think
about the consequences of rearranging their nomenclature!

Dylan

On Dec 13, 2007 8:26 AM, Mary Sue Ittner <msittner@mcn.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Not all Brunsvigia leaves look alike. If you look on the wiki you'll see
> some of the variety. In the Color Encyclopedia they are described as:
> "Leaves 2-20 but mostly 4-6, green or dry at flowering, suberect or
> pressed
> to the ground, oblong to tongue-shaped, the upper surface smooth to
> papillate or bristly, the margins usually raised, often minutely fringed."
> But I guess the difference Dylan is talking about is the midrib which only
> Amaryllis has making it different from the other genera in this family in
> South Africa. The Brunsvigia leaves are much more broad than Nerine
> leaves.
>
> I agree that some of the Brunsvigia flowers remind me of a large Nerine,
> but others have such a widely spreading umbel with flowers on the end of a
> long pedicel and don't look at all like Amaryllis belladonna or Nerine.
> The
> length of the pedicel is also significant in the key as the Amaryllis
> flowers are usually much longer than the pedicels.  A lot of the
> Brunsvigia
> species after they bloom become a tumble weed distributing seeds as they
> go
> which is also very different from Amaryllis.
>
> Jim (Waddick) can look at some of the pictures of B. orientalis on the
> wiki. Mine has never bloomed. They look a lot like the picture he
> referenced of the hybrid.
>
> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
>
> And if you really want to get into a discussion of lumping what do member
> of this group think about putting Amaryllidaceae back into Alliaceae as
> proposed?
>
> Mary Sue
>
>
>
>
>
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