Hippeastrelia

[Heinie]

This is one of my own Hippeastrelia crosses between a Hippeastrum Red flower and Sprekelia formosissima that flowered recently and the flowers are just going off now. The first two photos are of the Hippeastrelia flowering for the first time this year. The 3rd and 4th photos are my own Hippeastrum Red flower as pod parent and my own Sprekelia formosissima as pollen parent. The similarity in the shapes and formation of the petals are clearly visible if you compare photos one and four. The bottom 3 petals sit together and the top three petals are more apart and not overlapping. The petal colours are very striking and has a velvet appearance to it.





Hippeastrum Red flower - Pod parent


Sprekelia formosissima - Pollen parent

[Ezeiza]

SUPER, Heinie. This cross has been tried many times but with few successes.

[Maggi Young]

What a success, Heinie!  The colour and form of the blooms is stunning. Congratulations.

[santo2010]

Hy Heinie, Wonderful!
How many leaves do they have when they started blomming? How many years have they taken?
I have made this crosses too, but with a striped Hippeastrum.
I'm very anxious to see what would them look!
In my case the cross came to be a faster growing one compared to same year Hippeastrum seeds.
They have now four leaves, but the bulbs are still small.
Congrats!

[Heinie]

Thank you all for the compliments.

This particular bulb is one of six 4 year old bulbs in the same 23cm plastic pot. I planted 25 seeds 4 years ago and only 6 germinated and grew on. I hope that the others will still flower soon instead of taking on the Sprekelia manners of flowering every two or three years. I planted 5 mature Sprekelia bulbs in two 23cm pots each 7 years ago because I was aware that they do not flower every year and hoping for one or two flowers each year. I had 2 or 3 flowers every year with the amount of bulbs in the pot including the offsets. These bulbs have made so many offset bulbs that the pot has taken up an odd out of round shape already. There must be at least 25 bulbs in total if not more in each pot. I will divide the bulbs from one pot later this year.

The bulbs have clearly showed certain characteristics of both the pod and pollen parents.

The Sprekelia characteristics are:

• Hard leaves about double the width but they are floppy
• Low number of leaves. This one has four leaves
• Smaller bulbs the size of a table tennis ball
• Hard and thick flower petals
• Petal layout
• Hard anthers and stigma
• Larger and longer pollen sacks

Hippeastrum characteristics are:

• A thick soft and hollow peduncle
• More than one flower per peduncle
• Longer lasting flowers. This two flowers lasted 11 days where the Sprekelia flower last one or two days

Santo, I hope I answered your questions above. The bulbs grew very fast compared to Hippeastrum. It seems that there are already a few offset bulbs in the pot. My Sprekelia bulbs do not carry more than 4 leaves per bulb.

[Ezeiza]

Heinie, although this is a bit off topic, Sprekelia formosissima DOES flower every year, often in October and again in December.

Bulbs are large and must be planted deep, not like people (wrongly) plant Hippeastrums. Dry winter dormancy. Well drained alkaline soil. Full sun. Ours are in 20 litre containers as they need plenty of root run. Under these conditions they are pretty undemanding.

[Heinie]

Ezeiza,

That is very interesting. I have my bulbs all planted exactly as you suggest but they are planted about one third above ground. I will certainly plant them deeper when I re-pot them. I think that pot is covered in roots already instead of growing medium. How deep would you suggest? Will 50mm under be sufficient? Thank you for the advice.

[JoshY46013]

Santiago, Alberto And Heinie

   I'm wondering how yours will turn out?  I'm assuming that the large red flowers are tetraploid Hippeastrum, what is the chromosome count for Sprekelia formosissima and howardii?   Was only six viable seed produced because of the tetraploid Hippeastrum or because of the cross itself?  I guess what I'm wondering is if a diploid will successfully cross as well? 

 

[Ezeiza]

Heinie, I have seen photos of Sprekelia bulbs dug in the wild and the necks were 15 cm. long. Mine have necks 10 cm. long and this seems to be enough. In any case, they go deeper with time suggesting the 10 cm. are not enough.

Our containers are 30 cm. in diameter and 40 cm. tall. It is a good size for most bulbs to do well, even the larger Brunsvigias.

Once you repot your Sprekelias to larger pots or tubs there will be an amazing explosion of growth. So far the bonsai effect is constraining them a lot.

[Heinie]

Ezeiza,
Thank you for the advice thus far. I emptied one pot this afternoon and from the original 5 bulbs planted 7 years ago there are now 39 bulbs. Some of the larger bulb necks are about 60mm long.

Josh,
I have no idea what ploidy the plants are. I do not think that I gave the seeds the necessary attention when I planted them under a thin layer of sand on top of the medium. This is not the normal method I use to plant these papery seeds. I did this cross because the two specific plants happened to be flowering at the same time and during a period of my madness by continuously experimenting with different things and it seem that I had some success. I still have to wait for the remainder of the bulbs to flower to get even happier than what I am now. I gave this pot some special attention during the 1st year but then it became just one more pot with bulbs until the flower emerged. The pot was placed with many others in a sunny position and left there during winter rains but I make use of a very gritty growing medium for all my bulbs.

Following are some photos of a pot planted with seeds of a cross of the same Hippeastrum and a different Sprekelia from the second pot on January 7th this year. You will notice by the size of the seedlings they grow fast. I carefully opened a side of a bulb today but could not get down far enough without possibly doing damage to the plant. The bulbs have pulled themselves into the growing medium like a Brunsvigia and the top of the bulb is at least 40mm underground. It seems like the bulb could be over 10mm in diameter already in less than 5 months. I will build up some courage and try again later to check again because I am the inquiring kind. I noticed that the big bulbs have also pulled themselves underground to about 40mm. They will have to be re-potted soon from this 16.5cm pot.

[anita]

Heinie,
What a stunning plant... I couldn't resist doing a web search to see if anyone in Australia was offering such hybrids.. alas no luck.. however my web trolling turned up this US site http://www.phoenixperennials.com/nursery/plant.php?plantID=2879 which shows another hybrid known as Durga Pradhan. the good news is that their text and the number of blooms in the background to their shot suggest that there is increased vigor from such parentage. On the Pacific bulb society website, http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/XHippeastrelia, there's a suggestion that their particular cross is self-fertile. Of course there would be an inclination for the seedlings to throw back to Hippies and Sprekelia but it's interesting that such a bi-generic hybrid could be fertile.
I'm consumed with envy... I'll keep my fingers cross that my Sprekelia and Hippeastrum co-operate and flower at the same time so that I can try cross pollinating.
Congratulations
Anita

[Heinie]

Anita,
Thank you for your compliment.

The photo from PBS looks very similar to mine. The leaves are also similar with a clear centre line that appears as if the leaf emerged folded double when it emerged and corrected when maturing. There also appears to be two flowers on a scape.

I cross pollinated the two flowers and both berries still seem to be growing slowly and is alive. The berries are a kind of mat charcoal/black colour. The other bulbs are not showing any signs of flower life yet.

[jshields]

I've heard that Hippeastrelia tend to produce maternal seedlings when pollinated with either Hippeastrum or Sprekelia.  So some forms may breed true in that sense.  Note that I haven't tested this idea myself.  The few times I've tried crossing Sprekelia and Hippeastrum I've gotten no seeds, so fertility is apparently not all that great.

Jim

[JoshY46013]

I've heard that Hippeastrelia tend to produce maternal seedlings when pollinated with either Hippeastrum or Sprekelia.  So some forms may breed true in that sense.  Note that I haven't tested this idea myself.  The few times I've tried crossing Sprekelia and Hippeastrum I've gotten no seeds, so fertility is apparently not all that great.

Jim

Jim,

When trying to produce seeds using diploid species the pods always seem to abort, I'm assuming tetraploid pollen is what's needed.  Using colchicine on seeds to produce tetraploid plants may be beneficial for breeding with Sprekelia.  If possible, crossing Sprekelia with the few white smaller species *MAY* produce something different (h. macbridei for ex.).

 

[anita]

My hippeastrums and sprekelia have kindly decided to flower at the same time so I'll be out there busily pollinating and trying to reproduce that lovely hybrid. Interestingly my hippeastrum johnsonii hybrids which flowered for the first time this year appear to have set seeds. Anita