Crinum Lily

It is true that many of the crinum lilies require more room than the ordinary amaryllis bulb or geranium plant, but so do the eremurus and Lilium giganieum, for instance, and at the same time they are highly regarded as garden plants. Crinums are among the most interesting and rewarding amaryllids to grow.

Not all of the crinums are suitable to culture in Northern greenhouses or gardens. Some of the natural species are a major or minor repetition of the “Milk and Wine Lily” theme, purple or rose stripes on a white background. They are infrequent bloomers, but in the modern race of hybrids descended from Crinum bulbispermum (formerly known as C. longlfolium or C. capense) there is a variety of free-flowering types with handsome foliage and beautiful umbels of flowers ranging from pure white to deep wine rose.

The Hardiest Species

Crinum bulbispermum is an old bulb from South Africa, the hardiest species known and the fundamental crinum in every collection for garden planting. It has bluish-green foliage, which may be several feet long on mature plants. It is reputedly hardy north to the New York City area with sonic protection in Winter. Its hybrids, mostly of the C. powelli group, are almost as cold-resisting.

C. bulbispermum will bloom four or five times in the Spring in the lower South, starting in February. Farther north the blooming season comes later in the year. The flower stems are two to three feet tall, and 10 to 1i1 or more-flowered on good specimens. The individual blooms are delicately trumpet-shaped with segments about four inches long, white with more or less red striping or red flush on the exterior. It requires good, rich loam and likes a dressing of manure now and then. It does better on well-drained soil than in heavy wet places, although many crinums like conditions almost aquatic.

Long-Necked Bulbs

C. bulbispermum makes numerous offsets and seeds well. It has an affinity for crinum moorei, a native of southern Natal, which has large roundish bulbs with long, heavy tapering necks. This is reported hardy like so many warm climate things “in the south of England under a south wall.” With protection it can probably be planted consid erably far up the Atlantic coastal area, but would require deep planting to avoid cold injury to the neck. In Florida it can be grown with good results with the bulb practically sitting on top of the ground.

C. moorei is one of the most graceful and elegant crinums, with light pink flowers and bright green, spreading leaves in a whorl at the top of the long neck. The plant is deciduous and loses its leaves in the Fall far south. It flowers in Summer, likes rich soil and plenty of moisture. The flowers are campanulate, borne in large umbels, with long pedicels and tubes.

Hybrids

Crossed with C. bulbispermum, C. moorei has produced the delightful series of modern hybrids which are the main basis of the present argument in favor of growing more and better crinums. The first of these hybrids is C. powelli, known in a light pink form, a p0re white form (album) and a wine-red type called rubrum. This last is less common than the others. In Holland, there are offered C. powelli var. Harlemense and C. powelli var. Krelagei, now available in the American trade. They are charming, both in foliage and in the varying shades of their luscious pink coloring.

American Varieties

America has produced the choice “Cecil Houdyshel” hybrid crinum, definitely of the C. powelli type, but a vast improvement in vigor, size of the umbel and rich coloring over the older pink parent. It was created some years ago by the California bulb specialist of the same name. In Florida, the lovely hybrid Louis Bosanquet, a very light pink, very early type, is a notable desideratum; bulbs of this interesting variety have been known to produce six or seven bloom scopes in a single season, starting in the first warm days of January. Somewhat scarce in recent years, it was a posthumous introduction of the English plantsman, Louis Percival Bosanquet, who lived at Fruitland Park, Lake County, Fla., for many years. Bosanquet also is noted for his wine-rose hybrid Ellen Bosanquet, which he named for his wife, and one of the outstanding crinums of the present century. With Cecil Houdyshel it is probably the most remarkable of this group originated in America.

Ellen Bosanquet is a later mid-season blooming bulb, distinct from the C. powelli type, and more like C. zeylanicum, the common “Milk and Wine Lily” of central Florida gardens in form of growth, and doubtless it had that species as one of its parents. It has large umbels of campanulate flowers of a rich burgundy shade.

Showy White-flowering Kind

C. powelli album is one of the most spectacular white-flowering bulbs in the world. It is capable of producing half a dozen scapes in a season from a large bulb, and in Florida is at its peak around Easter time. It can virtually replace the Easter lily in gardens and for church decorations at that time.

The C. powelli varieties are not unduly large, and can be grown in eight-to-10inch pots for the most part until they form large chimps. In the North they can be planted out in the garden in the Spring when warm weather arrives, or grown as “sentinel” specimens in large pots or small tubs. Some of the larger species, notably C. amabile and asiatieum, are too big for house plants in their mature stages unless there is plenty of room in the cellar, but are being grown in old buckets or nail kegs, by many amateurs in the North.

Growing Bulbs From Seed

The patient flower lover who likes to grow things can gain a deal of interesting experience in crinum culture at little cost by growing on small size, offsets of the various kinds and raising them from seed. C. asiatieum, from the tropical Pacific area, seeds freely and has been known to flower in two or three years from seed under glass with special treatment. This is one of the largest of all bulbs at maturity, with a leek-like base up to eight inches in diameter and giant leaves up to four or five feet long and six inches broad. It is an important landscape plant in Florida.

The hybrid J. C. Harvey, with attractive umbels of medium pink on long-necked bulbs which indicate their C. moorei ancestry, is an older American hybrid which still holds its popularity. It was originated in the Los Angeles area by a veteran horticulturist in the late 19th century. The late Fred Howard’s Amarerinum howardi, more properly known in the literature as Crinodonna corsi, a hi-generic hybrid between Crinum moorei and the Cape belladonna, Brunsrigia rosea, is a lovely thing, hardy into Virginia with some protection and having large umbels of the most rarely scented, unusual, pink flowers in late Summer. The perfume and coloring are like those of the Cape belladonna.

Lesser Known Species

Other popular crinum species worth trying in any collection are C. seabrum, with wide-open, amaryllis-like flowers, white and striped scarlet; C. giganteum, a rare pure-white African species, having wide-open tulip-like flowers; C. amcrieanum, a sturdy and half-hardy, stoloniferous kind, with white, star-like flowers; and C. kundiianum, C.fi mtrrial alum, C. campanulatum, C. crubescens, C. sanderianum, C. kirki, all “Milk and Wine Lily” types, with rose-purple, stripe variations on white trumpets. Other less common hybrid crinums sometimes found in American catalogs are Empress of India, Virginia Lee, White Queen, Burbanki, Peachblow, Mrs. Sophie Nehrling and Wormley Bury.

Pot Culture

Most crinum lily bulbs reach blooming size when three inches in diameter and can be managed in an eight-inch pot. As they grow larger, up to six inches in diameter or more, a shift to larger sizes of container may be necessary every two or three years. They will grow well in the same pot for several seasons undisturbed if given a new top-dressing annually and watered with liquid fertilizer every month or so. In pot culture, most of the bulb is left out of the soil. In the garden, unless in the lower South or similar warm climates, the bulbs should be planted deeply to prevent frost injury to its vital tissues. In cold climates the tender species are best dug in the Full and stored like dahlia tubers in the Winter.

Related Articles Of Interest:

• The Tiger Lily
• The Belladonna Lily – Unpredictable Big Bulb Amaryllis
• Madonna Lily – Lilium Candidum
• Propagating Lilies From Scales