Card of the Day - 2021-12-07

This is the Hippeastrum or Amaryllis, a most attractive plant that is sold in vast quantities for the festive season; it has a large brown bulb which has an inner excitement that does not hint at its inner beauty, for out of this sprouts large leaves and eventually one or more spikes with huge trumpet flowers. It must be supported at that point, or it turns into rather a wobbly structure, forever plunging to the ground and spilling its soil all over the floor.

I have to say I do like this set, especially the black backgrounds which are most dramatic, saying which I also freely admit that it does not always show the flowers off at their best, some of the darker ones blending too much into those backgrounds.

The Amaryllis also appears on several Wix Kensitas silks of varying size, plus cardboard protective sleeves which tell its story – apparently in the language of flowers it means “beautiful but timid”, possibly based on Greek myth, where Amaryllis was a beautiful shepherdess. This source also tells us that the original bulbs came from South America and it was cultivated in England as far back as 1629.