"Chico" is a diploid species Hippeastrum (like "Reggae" - both are selections of H.cybister released from the nearly contemporary American breeder Fred Meyer) but it is successfully treated like any common big blooming hybrid. In particular it loses its leaves very easily in winter - it is not an evergreen as for example H.aulicum or H.papilio - or H.reticulatum are.

Unfortunately this spectacular cultivar is not such a diligent offset produceer.

Hans-Werner

what do you mean by offset produceer.

By that I mean the formation of vegetative propagation bodies!

*lol*
He's saying it doesn't make babies. Or at least not quickly.

Amanda 'romando'

Ok thanks, sorry I am new to actually talking about plants, I have been growing them for a while, but I don't know all the terminoligy. I am not all that concerened with reproduction of this plant I just want it to grow each year and blossom. I am going to grow it indoors with my orchids, obveously it will take different care, but I have lighting and humidity and temp all in line for the orchids in my apartment. I have not yet potted it, but I am going to soon. After it blooms do I just let the leaves be untill they die on their own?

vegetative propagation bodies... Eeekkksss!

Hans that sounds like something from a sci-fi movie. ;-)

Just joking with ya! :-) LOL!

me_171.....after it blooms you will need to fertilize during the leaf stage....there are threads about fertilizing already posted.

Happy gardening
Sierra

*rollingonthefloorlaughing*

That was great comments; thank you!

Interestingly there is a differentiation between two kinds of daughter bulbs (..."babies" )...
bulblets which appear on the outermost part of the basal plate, and
bulbils which are formed between two bulb scales which are still alive. So the first leaves of this latter kind of offsets emerge between these scales, and the daughter bulbs becomes visible as individuuals not before these bulb scales finally age and dry up.

A very low count of offsets is a pity - on the other hand a very rich offset production can be an imprecation, too - if the mother bulb is likely to sacrifice too much of its own material by this production of babies so that it finally drops below the minimum size to become or maintain bloomable size.

Well - I do not know any Hippeastrum which exhibits this unfavourable behaviour - so far. But there exist indeed other amaryllids which tend to sacrifice themselves in favour of a rich offset prodution,
for example Ismene (Hymenocallis) x festalis
and I guess that the blooming capability of Cyrtanthus elaus (the former Vallota) is often impaired by the same effect.

Hans-Werner

PS: One example for rich (although not detrimental) daughter bulb formation - my clump of "Cantate" after 10y husbandry - without ever having divided it (I simply transpotted it into bigger containers; as appropriate, actually one 25L bucket)

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Hi
I have the feeling that the bulbs under stress produce more offset then the happy one (in the same variety)an instinct of servival.
This impression is based on the finding that bulb with many offsets (10-12) is half the size of bulb growing next to it without any offset.
ARIF

Hi,
Chico is a copywrited name for the species Cybister for the purpose of market controll. Reggae is a registered hybrid
of the Papilio/Cybister lineage. You cannot register a species. Fred Meyer was possibly the formost amaryllis breeder of his time with 70 or 80 registered hybrids and many of his hybrids are probably being registered by other
people and companies after purchase from his estate. Spotty
is also a copywrited name for the species stylosum.
Bill

BOTH Hippeastrum cultivars "Chico" and "Reggae" which are often assigned as "Cybister hybrids" are no hybrids at all as far as I understand from a very informative website below. They are simply something like selections (outstanding clones) from the true species H.cybister, released by Fred Meyer, this famous breeder of modern hybrids, particularly cybister hybrids.

Cultivation proposals include a minimum temperature of 10°Celsius. This is very important to be mentioned because "Chico" and "Reggae" are subsummarized under H.cybister hybrids - elsewhere, for example in this modern book from Great Britain, thus uniting them easily with hybrids which are having H.papilio in their parentage. Those might be much more cold-resistant leading to the erroneous conclusion that these tiny treasures "Chico" and "Reggae" might be similarly cold tolerant, too.

Hans-Werner

Here is a link that might be useful: Hippeastrum cybister

"Spotty is also a copywrited name for the species stylosum."

Is this in addition to the hybrid developed by Dr, Martin Cardenas (apparently from neoleopoldii and pardina, See _Garden Bulbs for the South_, Ogden) which, though named 'Sumac Pinini', is marketed as 'Spotty'?