Species, Hybrids are all Hippeastrum.....plain and simple.....there is no more to it than that!! Amaryllis is an entirely different genus. The only species of Amaryllis I am familiar with is A. belladonna, although I understand that there are two species in the genus Amaryllis. These are not a Hippeastrum, they are Amaryllis!! Worsleya is a different genus altogether as well....same with Crinum, etc. etc. They are all in the same family, Amaryllidacea.....this is obviously a very large family with many genera under it. I have no idea who the first person is that caused such confusion by calling hybrid Hippeastrum Amaryllis...they are not....end of story. I also have no idea why the hybridizers continue this nonsense except now for historical purposes, which is not a terribly good reason as far as I am concerned :o) Dan

Thank you for clarifying that whole mess, Dan!

So, my beautiful Minerva is a Hippeastrum... and those pretty pink naked ladies are Amaryllis... very simple to remember!

Except that the pink naked ladies, in your zone, are almost certainly Lycoris squamigera (Lycoris is also a genus in the Amaryllidaceae). L. squamigera is hardy to zone 5 while Amaryllis belladonna is reliably hardy to zone 7. The two species both go by the common name "Naked Lady," behave the same way and look strikingly similar, although to my eye the A. belladonna has much more red pigment in the stem.

- Steve

I'm a bit confused about those, too... some companies and/or sellers list them as being hardy to zone 5 while others have them as hardy to zone 7... some even have them listed as only hardy in zones 8-10. They call them Naked Ladies, Resurrection or Surprise Lilies, Belladonna, and some have them listed as Crinum Lilies or Lycoris.

There appear to be small differences, such as the flower color is a washed out pink in some, while it's very bright pink in others. As you said, stem color seems a bit different, as well. I'm sure there are other differences. I just don't know them well enough to tell them all apart.

Since I can't really tell one from another, if I were to buy some bulbs I'd probably just plant them in a container and bring them in when the weather turned cooler in fall!

Regardless of what they are or where they survive, they are very beautiful flowers... I saw a photo of them planted in a container, in bloom without the leaves present... and they were under-planted with what looked to be English Ivy and some type of small blue flowers... the effect was stunning! They looked rather like a pink topiary!

Amaryllis is a monotypic (only one species) genus of plant also known as the Belladonna Lily or naked ladies. The single species, Amaryllis belladonna, is a native of South Africa. Hippeastrum are sometimes called Amaryllis, but it is not so. This could be because of the similar flower and bulb shape.

Resurrection lilies (who are also mistakenly called Amaryllis) are members of the Lycoris family.