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 overall is very variable in flower colour, 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 hybrid potential if that aspect interests you.
This species was discovered in Jacala, Mexico (State of Hidalgo, Mexico) by Dr. Thad Howard. He originally found it in its bright yellow form and 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 more often than correctly spelled, the original description in Phytologia 59: 86 1986 gives this as Zephyranthes katheriniae (with a second “i”, indicating that it is named after a female).
With further explorations other forms with a variety of flower colours, including various pink and apricot shades were found. One notable bright and vivid crimson red form was found by Dr. Thad Howard in 1962 (Howard 62-6), south of Jacala and the previous discoveries. This he originally called Jacala Crimson, which was simply a name of convenience and not a clonal name. He described it as “shocking crimson”, noting that the small flowers were held on tall stems. Subsequently the name seems to have mutated to “Jacala Red” and the internet seems very active with a quest for “the genuine” Jacala Red when in fact there never was one, the Jacala epithet was just Thad’s name for his new red discovery, before it was christened Z. katheriniae. The original description describes the species as having both yellow and red forms.It may be worth noting that one grower reports that seed raised from red forms, gave yellow progeny, some marked with red externally, but none were pure red. We offer here Z. katheriniae rubra, a red form, which is what Dr. Howard in his ‘Zephyr Gardens’ catalogue, annotated his Jacala Crimson as.
We do also grow the horticultural stock which was known as Jacala Crimson, we offer this separately for those who want the name and one of the original forms of Thad’s collection. It isn’t clonal, (it never was) but there is very little variability between the flowers in our stock and virtually no difference between Jacala Red and the Z. katheriniae rubra offered here.
First introduced to our lists April 2017.
