Description
This is a stunner with the most amazing colours combined into its ephemeral flowers. There are 3 large petals separated by 3 small spotted ones. The outers are primrose yellow with purple lines and veins and a deep purple base. The inners are cream with purple veins.
The flowers open fully in sun, to as much as 5cm across, face-up, so you can appreciate its full beauty. Each lasts but a day but they appear from June to late Autumn usually with several borne sequentially on each 40-70 cm tall stem, so this is not a one-trick-pony. Our largest plants have over 30 flowers each, per season.
These are best in pots where you can control watering. They will take chilling and frosting, short of being actually being frozen through (which few bulbs tolerate). Fertile, loam-based compost with good drainage. Feed at every opportunity to build size and aid flowering. Start in late spring for flowers the same summer and beyond, but should be dried when growth yellows in autumn and kept dry over winter.
Widely distributed in Mexico, but rare at all of its localities which are in mountainous scrubby forest at elevations of 2200-2900 m.
