There has been a long association between plants and Christmas, some of which go back centuries, e.g. Holly, Ivy, Mistletoe, Norway Spruce, Frankincense, Myrrh, and even the humble Brussel Sprout. In recent years there have been two new arrivals – Poinsettia and Amaryllis. You cannot go into any supermarket or garden centre in December without encountering rows of red Poinsettias and boxes of Amaryllis bulbs.
Poinsettias were the theme of my Christmas Nature Notes a few years ago, so this year I am turning my attention to Amaryllis (Hippeastrum). Now, I am going to let you into a secret - Amaryllis makes a perfect emergency Christmas present. Buy a few boxed bulbs and never again have the embarrassment of a friend arriving at the front door with an unexpected gift, when you have nothing to offer in return .
If you have no unexpected gift-bearing visitors and still have a few bulbs left on Boxing Day, they are yours to grow, and gosh don’t they grow! 50 to 100cm within just four weeks and in flower. Leave it to fruit and set seed as it would in its native South America. Amaryllis is much like our native Bluebell, propagating predominantly by seed, rather than producing daughter bulbs like Snowdrops and Daffodils. But don’t expect the seed to be in flower the following year in either of these plants. It takes six years for a bulb to grow large enough to flower. On the positive side a bulb can survive and flower for the next sixty.
Amaryllis is like most flowering plants, each flower containing both male stamens and female ovary, style and stigma. One of the prime objectives of plant fertilisation is to achieve cross-pollination, increasing the genetic diversity. But just how do plants stop self-pollinating when the anthers and stigma lie so close to one another? One common method found in many plants including Amaryllis is for the anthers to shed their pollen, before the stigma becomes receptive and ready to receive pollen .
However, Amaryllis goes one stage further and physically moves the female style and stigma in relation to the male anthers. When the flower initially opens it is in the male phase, with the anthers at the entrance, and the stigma below. Then over the next few days it moves into its female phase, when the stigma and style move up above the anthers, so they are now at the entrance .
In its native South America, approaching pollinating insects, such as the large Carpenter Bee, will brush against the anthers in the early male phase, picking up pollen en route to the nectary for food. Then, on visiting other flowers in the later female phase, they will encounter the stigma at the entrance onto which pollen will be deposited from previously visited flowers. How clever is that?
There is a well-known British plant that does just the same – Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum), pollinated by long-tongued Hawk moths. On the first night the flower opens in the male phase with anthers at the flower entrance but on the second night the style and stigma would have risen during the day, so the stigma is now in pole position at the entrance to receive any pollen.
Finally, wishing you all very happy Christmas and I look forward to telling you more about our amazing wildlife in 2025.