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
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