It wont matter , the whole tuber will dissappear forming the new stem , and slowely replace itself over the growing season . Feed it up and double the size of the tuber .

Aunt Jemima and All, I'm afraid many of these bulbs will need more TLC than we're used to giving and even at that I'm not so sure... I'm not particularily pleased with some of my leaves that are growing, they are a light shade of green and rubbery and don't want to stand errect; not all but a few of them. My aulicum on the other hand was huge and almost immediately started sending out roots. It now has a flower stalk up about 1" so I am excited about that! All of my bulbs except the one above that rotted are hard and feel healthy. About 10 have yet to root but all the others have, but only about half of the rooting ones have sent up leaves. I am keeping them all together down in our furnace room under a grow light once they have started to root and are potted up. It's going to be a long winter babying these bulbs!! Donna

Actually, that's a fallacy. I just learned a little bit about this subject... something I'd never really thought about. The one purpose of any living thing is to procreate... to send it's genetic material forward, to save it for posterity. If a plant feels at all threatened or stressed, it will rush to procreate... as in offset, or flower in the hopes of pollination leading to seed production. When a plant's roots are pot-bound, and there's no more room in the pot to grow, the plant feels stressed or threatened... and may think that death is imminent. It will then try to procreate by blooming. If the medium you are using is aerated and porous enough to dry out within a decent amount of time, pot size is not so critical... and in fact, a larger pot is better. However, in the case of regular bagged, peat-based organic potting mix, the water retention is such that the moisture will stay hung up for a rather long period of time, and if the pot is too large, this can be potentially fatal, causing root rot and a decline in plant health. So, medium will play a critical role in pot size. I'm attaching a link to a thread that discusses this subject further... it's rather interesting, really... I never thought about this before... but it all makes perfect sense now! Please read on... Here is a link that might be useful: some plants bloom better being rootbound??

The phenomenon of supersized "mother" bulbs 40+ cm (not that they are actually "Mothers" although I don't doubt that they might become "mothers of amaryllogenous appreciation")is AFAIK confined to the "common" TET Hippeastrums. However, some TET- or DIP- Hybrids with H.papilio parentage might produce big bulbs too. Of "Ambiance" (a TET or a Triploid?) I have one daughter bulb grown up to, a ver... 38 cm, and my MOTHER bulb (now a real mother) of PapDonAmb2 (a DIP) measures 37.5 cm now. ALTHOUGH, for unknown reasons, my Hippeastrums do not grow quite as well as they used to do in my previous location. Bulbs with H.cybister- and "Chico" heritage respectively can become rather large too, DESPITE their rather small leaves. Contrary to the philosophy of HADECO, that they published online, to produce Hippeastrums with small bulbs that still produce an Abundance of flowers, I always APPRECIATE big bulbs as a good, sound basis.When I have to select seedlings that are just 1/2 years old, I always look for specimens with conspicuously BIG bulbs. I discard seedlings with big leaves and a small bulb, particularly if the bulb has but FEW leaves. Lots of leaves do at least promise "lots of scapes"(on a mature bulb) NOTE that a giant bulb does not automatically require much space on your windowsill.Neither does a fan of MANY leaves. Giant leaves, such as being produced from "Appleblossom" "Orange Sovereign" and the (original version of) "Melusine" is ACTUALY, that make a specimen consume abundant space in sometimes inconvenient ways. Commercial production of bulbs CONSIDERS the point of the Costs for Transportation PER BULB. So it does not surprise me that they are NOT inclined to create hybrids that have "High bulb weight per total number/weight of flower output"