Overlooked Plants: Crinum bulbispermum (Orange River Lily)
The buds of Crinum bulbispermum are attractively striped like peppermint candy, and the striped pattern creates a more subtle blush effect within the flower interiors.
Sometimes certain plants gain a life-long association horticulturally with a region that perceptions become entrenched enough to impede gardeners from trying new taxa beyond their ‘hardiness’ limits. Crinums are a classic example of garden plants affiliated with the South that they are infrequently seen in northern gardens even if experimentation may prove their greater hardiness. However, the Mid-Atlantic region, while not necessarily the banana belt of the South, is becoming more hospitable climatically to crinums. The hardiest crinum is Crinum bulbispermum (Orange River lily), the floral symbol of Free State Province in South Africa. Its range is wide, being found in the summer-rainfall parts from northern Bushmanland towards the KawaZulu-Natal in the east, and the neighboring countries Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique. Equally impressive is the ability to grow in sandy or clay soils, and going dormant during summer drought according to Graham Duncan’s profile of the species in the Amaryllidaceae of Southern Africa (2017). The blue green foliage, which twists in a gyrating way towards the tips, is distinctive and gives an otherworldly feeling to a garden. If not for its blue green leaf color and less stout pseudostem, Crinum bulbispermum can be easily confused with another South African native Kniphofia northiae. Depending on the climate, the funnel-shaped flowers appear anywhere from late spring to early summer. Held like trumpets sideways on maroon pedicels or flowering stems, they are attractively striped dark pink and red. Unfortunately in the olfactory department, the flowers are less pleasantly scented than those of other species and hybrids. Crinum bulbispermum was hybridized with C. moorei to create the popular C. x powellii. It is still being used as a parent to impart hardiness and vigor in hybrids, some of which are viewed in the archives of Plant Delights Nursery online.
Established groupings in the garden of Ernie De Marie
Crinum bulbispermum is one of the crowning achievements in the Westchester County garden of Ernie De Marie replete with South African natives. For well over a decade or two, Ernie has been amassing different species and hybrids to trial indoors and outside. Sprinkled throughout the garden are several groupings of Crinum bulbispermum whose foliage are sculptural among the froth of self-sown annuals like poppies, Silene armeria, and larkspurs. Ernie reports that the plants have no trouble producing fertile seeds, which, if sown fresh, will produce enough plants for en masse planting. Seedlings require winter protection inside until they acquire significant bulb sizes to be planted safely outside. Curiously Elizabeth Lawrence, the Raleigh-based garden writer and avid plant collector whose interests included amaryllids, had little to say about Crinum bulbispermum. Although she includes C. bulbispermum among the garden-worthy species in North Carolina, she devotes considerable space for Crinum americanum and those that failed the hardiness tests.
