What's The Meaning Of Amaryllis?

We do it all the time. We surprise someone with a bunch of bright yellow flowers to cheer them up. We declare our fervent passion withtwo-dozen velvety roses. We sense the personalities of different flowers and intuitively choose one over another to fit our mood or the occasion.Tall stemmed, with trumpet-like blooms, the amaryllis symbolizes radiant beauty. However, Greek mythology has it that the flower got its start from a shy shepherdess, who pierced her heart and created a crimson flower.

Mythology

In Greek mythology, Amaryllis was a shepherdess who loved Alteo, a shepherd with Hercules' strength and Apollo's beauty. However, Alteo only loved flowers. He'd often said that he would only love a girl who bought him a new flower. So, Amaryllis dressed in maiden's white and appeared at Alteo's door for 30 nights, each time piercing her heart with a golden arrow. When Alteo finally opened his door, he found a crimson flower, sprung from the blood of Amaryllis's heart.

Contemporary Meaning

The word "amaryllis" comes from the Greek word "amaryssein," which means "to sparkle," referring to the bloom. Today, the amaryllis symbolizes pride, determination and radiant beauty--the kind that emanates from an inner source and flowers outward.

Features

Amaryllis has tall, thick stems and large, colorful flowers. Bloom colors includes red, pink, white, cream, orange and striped and variegated shades of several other colors.

Background

The amaryllis is native to South Africa, the Americas and parts of the Caribbean. It was discovered in Chile in 1828 by Eduard Frederich Poeppig, a physician and plant hunter from Leipzig, Germany.

Fun Fact

An amaryllis bulb can produce flowers for up to 75 years.

Amaryllis

Amaryllis is a bulbous plant, with each bulb being 5–10 cm in diameter. It has several strap-shaped, green leaves, 30–50 cm long and 2–3 cm broad, arranged in two rows. The leaves are produced in the autumn or early spring in warm climates depending on the onset of rain and eventually die down by late spring. The bulb is then dormant until late summer. The plant is not frost-tolerant, nor does it do well in tropical environments since they require a dry resting period between leaf growth and flower spike production.
From the dry ground in late summer (August in zone 7) each bulb produces one or two leafless stems 30–60 cm tall, each of which bears a cluster of 2 to 12 funnel-shaped flowers at their tops. Each flower is 6–10 cm diameter with six tepals (three outer sepals, three inner petals, with similar appearance to each other). The usual color is white with crimson veins, but pink or purple also occur naturally. The common name "naked lady" stems from the plant's pattern of flowering when the foliage has died down.
The species was introduced into cultivation at the beginning of the eighteenth century. They reproduce slowly either by bulb division or seeds and have gradually naturalized from plantings in urban and suburban areas throughout the lower elevations and coastal areas in much of the West Coast of the USA since these environments mimic their native South African habitat.
Many bulbs sold as Amaryllis and described as 'ready to bloom for the holidays' actually belong to the allied genus Hippeastrum, despite being labeled as 'Amaryllis' by sellers and nurseries. Adding to the name confusion, some bulbs of other species with a similar growth and flowering pattern are also sometimes called this plant's common name "naked ladies". Some of those species have their own more widely used and accepted common names, such as the Resurrection Lily (Lycoris squamigera).
There is an "Amaryllis Belladonna Hybrid" which was bred in the 1800s in Australia. No one knows the exact species it was crossed with to produce interesting color variations of white, cream, peach, magenta and nearly red hues. The hybrids were crossed back onto the original amaryllis belladonnas and with each other to produce naturally seed bearing crosses that come in a very wide range of flower sizes, shapes, stem heights and intensities of pink. Pure white varieties with bright green stems were bred as well. The hybrids are quite distinct in that the many shades of pink also have stripes, veining, darkened edges, white centers and light yellow centers also setting them apart from the original light pink. In addition, the hybrids often produce flowers in a fuller circle rather than a "side facing" habit like the "old fashioned" pink. The hybrids are able to adapt to year round watering and fertilization but can also tolerate completely dry summer conditions if need be.