Crinum bulbispermum (Burm.f.) Milne-Redh. & Shweick. var. longiflora

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘The plant which has afforded our drawing was received by Mr. Griffin from a garden in Jamaica, without notice of its being or not being indigenous of that Island.  Were it native of those parts, we should have had no hesitation in deeming it distinct from the Cape species, under the name of which it is here published.  It differs in having a firmer more upright and in no way glaucous foliage, a full third longer flowers, and a bright green furrowless germen.  Mr. Griffin thinks that the bulbs of the two are different.  But as the distinctions we observed, were such as we conceive to be within the scope of both seminal variation and exotic culture, we think it safer to record the plant as a distinguished variety of the present species, than to separate it by a new name, before either the permanence of the differences has been proved, or its original abode ascertained  The drawing was taken in May last, at Mr. Griffin's, at South Lambeth, where the plant flowered in the hothouse.  There are other specimens of it both in the Cambridge and Liverpool botanic gardens.’  [BR t.303/1818 as Amarylis longifolia var. longiflora].  BM t.661/1803. 

History at Camden Park

Listed in the 1850 and 1857 catalogues [B.39/1850]. 

Notes

Amaryllis longiflora Steud. (1840) = Hippeastrum  elegans (Spreng.) H.E.Moore.  Perhaps an unlikely possibility.