THEY ALL LOOK ALIKE

BUT HAVE DIFFERENT NAMES

THE US ARMY in a futile attempt to smooth things out conducted race relations classes among darkies and whities. It was 1975, I a freedom fighter. Once bored to death, I heard some negro tell the group their nemesis smelled like wet chicken, while the whities declared it was the contrary.

15 years later, in Holyoke, MA, while working as a vocational counselor,  I heard Vincent, a negro in MA, tell a co worker: "We all look alike but have different names".

THAT IS our subject for today. Plants that really look alike but are evidently different, at least when their blooms show.  Hymenocallis pedalis is one I keep in a bucket to avoid snails or slugs munching on it.  I have had this bulb for the last five years, changing its location from ground to pot, until It became a waste of time. The culprits always found their way until the last six months.

They are pretty scarce now, can be counted with both hands, while previously I could count a hundred in a month. The same with bees and beetles. They are mostly gone.

This plant is pretty weird since It has bloomed in the worst heat wave I have observed in the last five years, with 26 six days in a row with temperatures over 90 Farenheit, with you know, the feeling of 100.

The surprise was disconcerting, when I saw white instead of the orange I had seen before, in one of this look alike creature.  The other is Hippeastrum reticulatum, it has not shown its color yet.

The Hymenocallis has besides the beauty, fragrance. The flowers may remind you of Crinums.  It is difficult to define it. Vanilla comes to mind, with some hints of Nerius Oleander, Cananga odorata  and one in the collection,, Eucharis amazonica. 

I declare now Hymenocallis pedalis officially a member of my over 100 collection.

 that is that