Brunsvigia
Mary Sue Ittner (Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:26:06 PST)

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