Pyrolirion tubiflorum var. aureum

[BULBISSIME]

A friend of mine gave me this bulbs 2 months ago, from Chile, as Rhodophiala bagnoldii.
It was flowering some days ago, looking strange and a french Amaryllidaceae specialist told me that it could be Pyrolirion...
Does somebody have any advice ??

[Hans A.]

Hello Fred,
cannot tell you if your plant is Pyrolirion - I only can confirm your plant is not Rhodophiala bagnoldii - here a (very bad ) picture how it should look like.

[johnw]

Hello Fred,
cannot tell you if your plant is Pyrolirion - I only can confirm your plant is not Rhodophiala bagnoldii - here a (very bad ) picture how it should look like.

Oh dear, this could get messy.

Hans your Rhodophiala bagnoldii looks like my R. auracana from JJA cw seeds.

johnw

[Alessandro.marinello]

is strange the flower turned towards over

[Paul T]

Fred,

A single flower pointing straight upwards sounds very strange for a Rhodophiala, as Alessandro just pointed out.  How big is the actual flower?  It looks absolutely massive in the pic, but that could just be a perspective issue.  Such a beautiful gold colour to it!!  Very striking.

[johnw]

Knowing absolutely nothing about and never having seen one live I'd guess it was a Zephyranthes.

johnw

[Paul T]

John,

It does have the Zeph/Habranthus look to it, but still doesn't seem quite right for that either. It seems so large for that, but hard to tell from a pic.

[fermi de Sousa]

Knowing absolutely nothing about and never having seen one live I'd guess it was a Zephyranthes.

johnw

I think Pyrolirion "was once" a Zephyranthes.

This is possibly Pyrolirion aurea.
cheers
fermi

[Hans A.]

Oh dear, this could get messy.

Hans your Rhodophiala bagnoldii looks like my R. auracana from JJA cw seeds.

johnw

Hello John, you are right - Rhodophiala is a very tricky genus and difficult to identify (do not have any good key) - the differences seem to be very small often - R. bagnoldii grows in the coastal, more desertic zones of northern Chile (3.+ 4. Region) in low altitudes and reaches about 30 cm while R. auracana is a higher altitude plant (1000 -2000m) from the 8. + 9. Region and has plenty of rainfall  - it is  a larger plant up 70 + cm.
Near Concepcion (8. Region) I found once some other, yellow flowering plants - much smaller than R. araucana and in an altitude of maybe 10m. Until now I do not know which species it was...

[johnw]

Hans. - My auracana was grown from 1995 JJA seed seed. I will measure the leaves but am almost certain they are no more than 12 cm.

johnw

[johnw]

John,

It does have the Zeph/Habranthus look to it, but still doesn't seem quite right for that either. It seems so large for that, but hard to tell from a pic.

If those pavers are 10cm across then the flowers are huge.

johnw

[Alberto]

Hi.
It looks a Pyrolirion. It is typical of this genus the style 3-branched, each branch with a spatulate stygma, in Zephyranthes the style is not branched and the stygma is trifid to capitate. In Rhodophiala the leaves are flat and the spathe bracts are fused on one side.

Alberto

[BULBISSIME]

a second plant is flowering now, so here are some more pics !

With the spatulate stigma...

[David Nicholson]

Great pictures Fred and a lovely plant.

[Alessandro.marinello]

beautiful photos