Description
The flowers before they open, produce a tantalising red bud but these then open to primrose yellow hinted on the outside of the flower with a red or orange stripe or keel. On the second day, the red has changed to an apricot flush and by the next day it has vanished like morning mist. The lovely primrose yellow remains of course and delightfully a clump always has some red showing from younger flowers.
Offsets are made, but sparingly so, seed is made freely and this species is considered to be of easy culture. Despite hailing from tropical areas, it has proved to be comparatively hardy in parts of the USA, whilst hardier it will not be winter hardy in the UK climate however. It has a long blooming season and with warmer temperatures (or under glass) you can expect flowers from April to November.
Zephyranthes primulina was discovered, like so many others, by the late Dr. Thad Howard in Mexico. He found it in San Luis Potosi at low elevations on the foothills and valleys of the Sierra Madre Orientale between Valles and Tamazunchale, near Ciudad Valles. His collection number was Howard 86-16 (May 1986). It was later named by Dr. Howard and Scott Ogen, in Herbertia, Volume 46 (1990).
They considered this species to be closely allied to Z. macrosiphon but it differs in having slightly smaller, primrose yellow flowers with more slender segments and anthers which are flexuose-versatile and not antrorse. In addition the pollen is orange-yellow rather than yellow and this is the only yellow Mexican species which has keeled foliage (this is useful as in the wild it grows in the same areas as Z. macrosiphon, Z. nymphaea, and Z. reginae).
First offered in our lists in 1998 but relisted after a break in April 2017.
