Description
Narrow foliage from small, quite rounded and globular bulbs about 2cm in diameter at most, are made with the flowers from about May onwards. The flowers are made on long tubes and have rounded petals. In cultivation Z. katheriniae is readily grown, though it makes offsets only slowly. However it does set seed quite readily. The species is very variable in flower colour and this has led some to speculate on its origins, however nothing is proven. This is certainly one of the most exciting species with regard to its colourings and also its hybrid potential if that aspect interests you. In var lutea, some solid yellow forms are known, but most yellows appear to have some red, or transient red colourings on the reverse of the petals, especially near the tips.
This plant was discovered in Jacala, (State of Hidalgo, Mexico) by Dr. Thad Howard. He first found it in its bright yellow form and in his notes, which e kindly shared with me before his death he described it thus “Howard 57-9 Jacala Yellow, pretty yellow goblets in shades of light yellow to gold, most are bright lemon yellow”. At about the same time, another famous Rainlily collector was active in the same part of Mexico, this was Mrs Katherine Clint. She also found plants of this, also in 1957, and sent some for examination. The new species (for this is what it was determined as) was eventually named in her honour in 1986 by Lorraine Barney Spencer, (working under Florry, she had submitted her PhD thesis on Zephyranthes in 1973). Subsequently mis-spelled, in books and online, more often than correctly spelled, the original description in Phytologia, 59(2):85-88 gives this as Zephyranthes katheriniae (with a second “i”, indicating that it is named after a female). The plants as named originally, were bicolourous yellow and red forms.
With further explorations other forms with a variety of flower colours, including various pink, apricot and red shades were found all in the same general upland area near Jacala, which Scott Ogden records as being “about 6,000 ft … hillsides filled with pockmarked outcroppings of limestone”.
First introduced to our catalogues April 2017.
