Blooming today: Hippeastrum

Spring has come to the Historic Tree Grove at MOSI. For the last week the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Live Oak has had a riot of orange blooms circling its base. The Hippeastrum bulbs have put up flowering stalks despite the beating they took in the freezes this past winter.

Two large and established patches of hippeastrum are blooming like mad and bulbs that were relocated late last fall are also trying their hardest to compete, bringing color to the base of the Ray Charles Live Oak. If you get a chance to visit the museum in the next few weeks, take a dash out into the gardens and check out these remarkable flowers. They never do last very long, but while they are here they are truly a sight to behold.

The rest of the year these plants will leave behind gorgeous green foliage but I am always struck by their beauty each spring. Totally unexpected, they throw their stalks of flowers into the air in mid-February and are blooming like champs by the first day of March.

More on Hipperastrum: Hippeastrum, from the Greek for "horseman's star" and now also known as knight's star are popularly, but erroneously, known as Amaryllis. Amaryllis is in fact a monotypic genus (only one species) from Africa that look similar to hippeastrums but have no leaves.

Hippeastrum is a commonly sold bulbous plant that readily grows in pots and indoors. There are around 70-75 species of hipperastrums available on the market, but somehow I favor these brilliant orange ones. Certainly they are not the most showy cultivar but their color is eye-catching and remarkable.