Ismene/Hymenocallis amancaes
Lee Poulsen (Tue, 24 Aug 2004 00:04:44 PDT)

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