Lycoris sewerzowii

Description

Lycoris is a genus of 13-20 species of flowering plants in the family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. They are native to eastern and southern Asia in China, Japan, southern Korea, northern Vietnam, northern Laos, northern Thailand, northern Burma, Nepal, northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, and eastern Iran. They were imported into North Carolina and now grow wild. In English they are also called hurricane lilies or cluster amaryllis. The genus shares the English name spider lily with two other related genera They are bulb-producing perennial plants. The leaves are long and slender, 30-60 cm long and only 0.5-2 cm broad. The scape is erect, 30-70 cm tall, bearing a terminal umbel of four to eight flowers, which can be white, yellow, orange, or red. The flowers divide into two types, those with very long, filamentous stamens two or three times as long as the tepals (subgenus Lycoris; e.g. Lycoris radiata), and those with shorter stamens not much longer than the tepals (subgenus Symmanthus Traub & Moldenke; e.g. Lycoris sanguinea). The fruit is a three-valved capsule containing several black seeds. Many of the species are sterile, reproducing only vegetatively, and are probably of hybrid origin; several additional known hybrids occur.[