Amaryllis belladonna
Jane McGary (Sat, 09 Sep 2017 11:14:49 PDT)

Leo wrote,

"I believe the cool-season rains in California are neither regular
enough, nor plentiful enough, for Amaryllis belladonna to grow from seed
without intentional watering by a gardener. I cannot imagine it would
become established on its own more than extremely rarely, let alone
invasive."

One sees a colonies of Amaryllis on roadsides in coastal California, but
I think they probably got there when soil or garden debris containing
bulbs was dumped intentionally or deposited by heavy equipment that had
picked it up from cultivated places. It reminds me of a colony of
Kniphofia a Forest Service botanist told me about, which she had found
growing at 4000 feet elevation in Mt. Hood National Forest. We
speculated that it had reached there in the treads of logging equipment,
which is also how Scotch broom is spread in these forests. After
logging, the forest understory is usually severely damaged or even
eliminated (especially if herbicide is applied to eliminate competition
for the seedling conifers that will be planted, a common practice on
private forest), and the same is true of maintained roadsides.  There is
or used to be a well-known population of Iris douglasiana, a coastal
species, on a freeway bank east of Portland, quite distant from its
normal range, that probably came via equipment; it was hybridizing with
locally native I. tenax, a cross that can create some beautiful
evergreen but extra-hardy cultivars.

We will soon have an unhappy opportunity to see how heavily used forests
beside an interstate freeway regrow, thanks to the criminal idiot who
started the Eagle Creek fire by throwing fireworks off a trail. It has
burnt about 35,000 acres so far and is not nearly controlled. The air
here is heavy with smoke and even ash.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA

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