Flowering recently in our heated greenhouse was the little-known Paramongaia weberbaureri. This fascinating bulb, native to Coastal Chile at 10,000′ elevation, is a distantly evolved cousin of our native spider lilies, the genus Hymenocallis.
We typically don’t grow many non-hardy plants, but are interested to see if it will hybridize with our native Hymenocallis, since another Andean native, Ismene amancaes, has been successfully hybridized with Hymenocallis in the past. As this is a winter-flowering species, we have collected and refrigerated the pollen while we await Hymenocallis flowers.
