Likely a Mrs Garfield?
Remember the mystery Hippeastrum I decided to self-pollinate to see if I could finally find out whether it’s a H. reticulatum or a Mrs Garfield? Well, I may have gotten somewhere with that small experiment.
I was excited when I saw the pods swell. Although my Hippy had flowered many times before, I’d never seen its pods swell. So, I thought I was off to a good start. A week or two later, though, the pods stopped expanding and started to yellow. Several days later, I came home to find that they had completely dried up.
Anyhow, I cut them off the plant using a pair of scissors. I then split the pods open to see if they had any seeds, but no. No seeds popped out.
Shriveled seed pods
Back to my Hippeastrum support group
To be frank, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for seeds. But then I got to thinking: perhaps the absence of seeds was actually another clue that my Hippy could be a Mrs Garfield.
So, I headed over to the Amaryllis/Hippeastrum Lovers & Enthusiasts Facebook group and posted the results of my self-pollination experiment.
I love this group because it never lets you down when it comes to advice and inspiration. As luck would have it, I came across a grower with a range of Hippeastrum cultivars, including Mrs Garfield. Looking at my pictures, he advised that my plant was certainly not a pure H. reticulatum.
He then shared a photo of his Mrs Garfield with me and pointed out that the flowers of this cultivar have lightly colored bases (see a screenshot of our chat below). He also agreed that the cultivar appeared to be self-sterile, as he’d had similar results when he tried to self-pollinate his plants.
So, Have I Solved the Mystery?
I left that conversation a little more confident that my plant was likely a Mrs Garfield. As I write this post, it’s flowering, so I intend to look more closely at the bases of its flowers this time around and see whether they have the same lightly colored appearance the grower pointed out to me.
Otherwise, shall we say I’ve moved on? 😊 I love my Mrs Garfield.