Lycoris straminea
James Waddick (Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:29:18 PDT)

Dear Tony, Jim Mck and all,
This really got me even more curious. So some facts:

Taxonomy
L. squamigera was described in 1885 from Japan probably from
cultivated materials.

L. straminea in 1848 , but the name was subject to much
confusion as the type herbarium sheet had 2 different flowers/species
on it. Traub clarified this in 1956

L. longituba was not described until 1974

L. longituba flava in 1985

2N
Roh's paper is the first to I recall to give a chromosome # for L.
straminea at 2n=19

Recall L. squamigera is 2/3N = 27

L. sprengeri 2 N = 22

L. longituba 2N = 16

There is no obvious mathematical way L. straminea could
combine to form L. squamigera, but the parentage of 8 + 8 + 11 adds
right up to 27. This does suggest a triploid of longituba (2 N) x
sprengeri (N).

Description
There is a decent description of the flower in Flora of China
(on Line) and Sida paper cited earlier.

It is in the subgenus Lycoris with foliage produced in fall.

Tepals are straw/ tan on opening with small pink/red spots
and lines, the flower fades to dull yellow and spots disappear. Tepal
edges are undulate (ruffled) and narrow (spidery).

Although these small spots and lines are difficult to see,
this vaguely looks like the picture at Tony's site and can be found
elsewhere on the web. Oddly none is on the PBS wiki site.

This is also what grows in my garden - as I recall, I do not
recall extremely undulate petal edges, just slightly.

Conclusions:

The plant we grow and know today as L. straminea seems
correctly named, but the plant grown at the time of these earlier
studies was probably incorrectly identified.

I do not think the plant we know as L. straminea is a parent
of L. squamigera.

And it look obvious by comparing anatomy that L. squamigera
is a cross between longituba (2N) and sprengeri (N).

One of the junior authors of the Sida paper, Mrs Lin found "
that L squamigera is a hybrid of L. chinensis x L. sprengeri
(male)" (P. 304). So.......

Best Jim W.

--
Dr. James W. Waddick
8871 NW Brostrom Rd.
Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711
USA
Ph. 816-746-1949
Zone 5 Record low -23F
Summer 100F +