Thanks for the site, great pictures. There is a handy free machine translator for folks whose Spanish is rusty or non-existant: http://worldlingo.com/products_services/… The tanslations are far from perfect but helpful. Lee Poulsen wrote: > On the Spanish bulb list a guy in Peru has been describing this flower > and things about it I didn't know. Apparently it is the official > emblem of the city of Lima and used to be found in large numbers > growing wild on the banks of the Rimac River which flows through Lima. > The locations where it used to grow so abundantly are now nothing but > metropolis, including a district of Lima that still is called the > Pampas of Amancaes, and the flower isn't grown anywhere in Lima today. > However, there is an organization (Club Floralíes de Lima) that has > dedicated itself to bringing it back and they have created a preserve > called Pachacámac on land outside of Lima owned/donated by the Lima > Cement Company where they grow this and other native plants. They have > a webpage that shows some beautiful photos of the plant and flower > which they call 'Amancaes' > <http://www.peruecologico.com.pe/amancaes.htm>. Even Charles Darwin > records seeing fields of them flowering on the desert coastal hills of > Peru through binoculars as the Beagle sailed past them. If you can > read Spanish there is one other article about this preserve at > <http://quechuanetwork.org/news_template.cfm/…> > > In Peru it flowers in the cold and cloudy season (winter?), starting > at the end of June and flowering through the end of September. > > According to this page, the flower also comes in white and purple. Has > anyone ever seen or heard of a white H. amancaes? And are there any > other purple flowered Hymenocallises or sister genera? Another article > <http://caretas.com.pe/2002/1733/…> also > mentions that there is an almost extinct white flowered form that I > think the article says they are managing to cultivate a few of them in > the nursery at the Pachacámac sanctuary. > > --Lee Poulsen > Pasadena area, California, USDA Zone 9-10 > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php >