Hi Mary Sue and Nhu, One factor that I dont think has been considered in discussion about what initiates flowering in Amaryllis belladonna, is the large variation in flowering percentages from distinct wild cultivars of Amaryllis as against good flowering percentages from Amaryllis cultivars that have been crossed with other Amaryllis forms/varieties. By wild varieites I mean the Amaryllis varieties that were oginially collected and exported from South Africa during the 1820's to 1880's mainly form the SW Cape. Most of my Amaryllis cultivars have about an 80% flowering rate - where every mature sized bulb flowers each year, with exceptions for bulbs that had a heavy seed load through controlled crosses the previous flowering season. Conversely there are a few cultivars of what I regard are the pure belladonna varietial forms of Amaryllis where regardless of how they are cultured flowering is only initiated 10% to 30% of the time. The poorest flowering variety has very light pink trumpet shaped flowers and - has between 5 to 9 flowers that all face the direction of the midday sun. It is a very poor seed setter, and the seeds are always relatively small and round. These are found through the farmlands of south east of Australia particularly in 19th Century cemeteries where they have often naturalized. I understand that there are a few distinct colour forms in South Africa that are regionally based, and are uniformly coloured darker pinks and are more robust in flower. There is a more even pink and a purplish pink Amaryllis belladonna also found in country side regions in SE Australia that have the look of being different wild forms of the species. Has anyone seen these flowering in South Africa as uniform flower colours, or grows them - what difference do they display? Cheers Jim Lykos Blue Mountains Australia ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nhu Nguyen" <xerantheum@gmail.com> To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 1:32 AM Subject: Re: [pbs] Amaryllis belladonna and fire > Wow Mary Sue, > > I think it's an interesting comparison from your garden and a localized > climate where you live. We have discussed many themes which these bulbs > could bloom and fire could be one of the triggers as you have shown. I > also > really like the photos. I must confess I am intrigued by bulb > inflorescences > (or other leafless plants) that come out of barren ground. It's so alien. > > Nhu > Berkeley CA > Blooms have slowed down a bit but Nerine hybrids are still going plus a > few > Oxalis. > > On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 7:57 PM, Mary Sue Ittner <msittner@mcn.org> wrote: > >> Hi, >> But it is all over the place >> with more coming up all the time. I took a few pictures for the wiki >> today, but I couldn't get very close and my zoom lens distorts distances. >> <http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…> >> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… >> >> > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > > __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus > signature database 4474 (20091001) __________ > > The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. > > http://www.eset.com/ > > >