The belladonna lily: A beautiful woman

R. L. Bieleski1

When my parents moved into their was discovered in Richtersveld first Europeans to see the Cape of new house in the wilds of Orakei, National Park, in Namaqualand, South Good Hope when Bartolomeu Dias a short time before World War II Africa. There are fewer than 1000 reached there in 1488, before turning started, my father decided that our from a single population in the back to . In 1497 Vasco da quarter acre should be a wild, and the was described Gama extended the exploration right personal food bowl. I’m not sure if and named A. paradisicola in 1998 – round to India, and set the path for it was his innate thriftiness, or his this is rare in cultivation. a major spice trade. By 1511 the forward-looking concerns about the spice trade was firmly established, belladonna has a raft of imminence of war, but the front part until slave trading from West Africa popular names, depending on which was planted in trees (5 apples, 4 largely replaced it 40 years later. country you live in. In the UK it is plums, 3 citrus, a nectarine, a peach, However there seems to be no history called the belladonna lily (the name a pear, and a quince). The back part of exploration of the Cape area, and mostly used in ) or the of the section was devoted to a vege there were no settlements there until Jersey lily, because it was used as a garden – beans, beetroot, Brussels the Dutch established the first in symbol of Jersey2. The name naked sprouts, cabbages, carrots, kohlrabi, 1652, Kaapstad. It seems much more lady appears to be a North American potatoes – you name it. So as you likely that this was the point at which custom, coming from the very feminine can imagine, the lawn was minuscule, Europeans first saw the spectacular on top of a naked stem with and the flower bed was a narrow (1 ft but ephemeral of the no in sight. In Sicily it’s the by 12 ft) strip against the outside wall belladonna lily growing in the Fynbos, St Rosalina lily and in the rest of Italy, of the lounge. And the only flowers and that Holland, with tulipomania at the Madonna lily. In Spain, where it’s I remember seeing in it were the its height and a flourishing trade also a harbinger of summer’s end, it’s autumnal bursts of belladonna lilies. from Turkey, would be the one to grab called meninas para escola (or the These were the first flowers I ever this new addition to its flourishing back-to-school girls), seen as echoing knew, and I’ve always had a soft spot flower industry. This would fit with the schoolgirl’s pink dresses. In its for them, which makes it sad that they belladonna lily being first recorded in native , it’s the March lily, seem to have almost disappeared Britain in 1712. European botanical because the summer ends in March from the gardens of Auckland. To illustrations of belladonna date from there. In Portugal it’s St Joseph’s find them still, you really have to go the 1770s (Fig. 1A–C). In some ways, staff (bordão de São Jose), a name to a house and garden that’s been the best evidence that it did not enter which has a religious connotation. where it is for 70 years or so, where Europe until about that time is found The story is about the Virgin Mary, or this old favourite still survives. And (or not found, to be more precise) in rather about her husband, Joseph. survive they do – belladonnas show Gerard’s Herbals of 1597 and 1633. The legend has it that a suitable considerable resilience to passing There is no record of it there, whereas husband was being selected for the gardening fads, and make their in contrast there are records of a young Mary, and that Joseph made an presence known each autumn, after number of American plants, including, impression when he turned up with his you’d forgotten they were there. in the 1633 edition, a description of long brown staff (his walking stick, of the related Aztec lily (Sprekelia) which Let’s start with some name-calling. course) at the end of which a beautiful had come in from the West Indies by The belladonna lily is Amaryllis flower miraculously bloomed. then. Columbus reached America in belladonna. “Amaryllis” is a beautiful The belladonna lily is native to the 1492, four years after Diaz reached shepherdess, and belladonna Fynbos of the Western Cape area of the Cape of Good Hope, so the translates as “beautiful woman” so South Africa. I have had trouble finding time available for plants of Amaryllis the feeling of Linnaeus, the “father of out when and how it reached Europe belladonna to reach Gerard was the ” who gave it its botanical and entered cultivation. One version same: the big difference was that name, was clearly that this is one says that “during the slave trade European settlements in America lovely flower. Originally it was thought that started in the 1500s, seafarers were already being established to be in a monotypic (despite and merchants rounding the Cape by 1530, 120 years earlier than that, giving its name to the whole of South Africa dug up naked lady Kaapstad, giving plenty of time for , the , which and distributed them across Gerard to receive plants from there. includes such popular plants as Clivia, Europe and on sugar cane plantations , , Narcissus, There is little evidence as to when in Brazil and other parts of South , and ). However, in first reached America”. I have doubts about this. 1972 a second species of Amaryllis New Zealand. The earliest record Certainly the Portuguese were the

1 33 William Bond Street, Stanley Point, Auckland 0624, New Zealand; [email protected] 2 “Jersey Lily” became the nickname of Lily Langtry, a famous actress, beauty, and mistress of King Edward VII, and was further popularised by Millais’ portrait of her, entitled ‘A Jersey Lily’.

16 New Zealand Garden Journal, 2013, Vol. 16(1) B Fig. 1 Early botanical illustrations of belladonna lily. A, Amaryllis belladonna in J. Miller, Illustratio systematis sexualis Linnaei, t. 18 (1770–1777). B, A. belladonna var. pallida in Botanical Register, Vol. 9, t. 714 (1823). C, A. belladonna var. rubra in L. van Houtte, Flore des serres et des jardin de l’Europe, Vol. 14, t. 0 (1845). A Images courtesy www.plantillustrations.org. C located in Papers Past (http:// lily. The story of course is that the metaphorical use of the name trumps paperspast.natlib.govt.nz) is an belladonna (poison) got its name the descriptive. advertisement offering it for sale from its cosmetic use in Italy, where a Finally, what to do if you want to grow in 1913. Improved selections were droplet in each eye caused the iris to them? The main thing to remember being sold by Duncan and Davies fully dilate, creating a fascinating dark- is that they are from the Fynbos nursery during the 1920s, but the eyed beauty. Indeed Cleopatra herself and evolved to grow in poor, well- odds are that such a beautiful, tough, is reputed to have used atropine (in drained soil. The strap-like leaves easily transported bulb was brought this case from Hyoscyamus) in this are produced after autumn flowering, to New Zealand before 1880 with way. But atropine doesn’t come from remain green throughout the winter, the early settlers. It was already our garden beauty – it comes from the but die off in summer when the bulb being grown in by that totally unrelated deadly nightshade, becomes dormant, an odd behaviour time, and apparently a successful Atropa belladonna, a member of the called “hysteranthy”. Events are cross between it and Solanaceae, and with Datura and almost explosive when it’s time to (B. josephinae) had already been Hyoscyamus as other sources. But flower. I’ve measured the time taken made in 1841 by J. C. Bidwill at the daddy wasn’t entirely wrong: the from the first appearance of green at Sydney Botanical Garden, Australia. belladonna lily does have a poison, the bulb tip to opening of the flowers A second cross was made at the and a potent one, but in this case it’s on a 40 cm stem at 12 days. At its MacArthur estate in Camden Park, a toxic alkaloid called lycorine, also peak, the flower stem is extending by N.S.W. where Bidwill later took charge found in Lycoris, Narcissus and Clivia 5 cm a day. Bulb and perennial expert, of the Arboretum. miniata (where it has found uses with the late Hugh Redgrove notes that for herbalists). In tracking the history of introduction, Auckland they naturalise well: one of the confusing matters is that So will the real belladonna stand up? “thriving in any open, well-drained Hippeastrum species, mainly endemic Who has owner’s rights to the name? space or even under large trees, to America, are frequently called Is it the aptly descriptive appearance as long as it is not too shady for “amaryllis”, and that there has been of the “beautiful lady”, or the oblique the bulbs to ripen properly. The sufficient naturalising of belladonna reference to its use in cosmetics for foliage is untouched by animals, lily in South America for some authors personal beautification that came so the plants readily adapt to mistakenly believe that its natural first? Linnaeus doesn’t help us, as he themselves to almost any position home was there. From The flower gave both plants the same specific where heavy frosts do not occur. expert: “Amaryllis is a monotypic name, Amaryllis belladonna and Permanent plantings can be made (consisting of only one species) genus Atropa belladonna. But there’s a bit against fences, along drives, on of flowering plants containing the of a smoking gun in the Herbals of poor, dry, sunny banks or in similar belladonna lily, popularly known as the Gerard. The Amaryllis could not have odd corners… Transplant bulbs Amaryllis belladonna lily. Amaryllis is come out of the Cape much earlier when dormant in late summer and native of South and Central America than 1520, and as mentioned before, autumn. They should be partly and the Caribbean”. despite Gerard’s obsessive collecting buried with the necks protruding of plants and information, there And now to the matter of poison. My or half above the ground” (New appears to be no mention of it in his father was a cautious as well as thrifty Zealand handbook of bulbs and Herbals. In contrast, there is plenty man, and emphasised to the young perrenials). about the dwale, “Solanum Lethale” Roderick that the belladonna lily was or deadly nightshade; and in Gerard’s As to choice of , the bulbs poisonous. So for a large part of my list of “The Names” for dwale, he of the old, common, pink form of life I travelled under the impression says “the Venetians and Italians Amaryllis belladonna still give a that the poison atropine, alias call it Bella dona”. So I’m afraid the delightful subject for naturalising belladonna, was from the belladonna

New Zealand Garden Journal, 2013, Vol. 16(1) 17 (Fig. 2A–B). There are also a number There have been attempts to cross A version of this article was of improved selections with larger Amaryllis with Hippeastrum, but as far published in The Auckland flowers and broader, less pointy as I know without any success. Who Garden, March 2012. . Colour of these selections cares? You have to be hard up to not range from white, through white with get joy out of naked ladies, however a creamy throat, a creamy white, humble they are. a creamy-salmon through to the classical deep pink (Fig. 3A–B).

A

A

B Fig. 3 The belladonna lily in its various guises. A, a white form naturalised in Dr Hammett’s garden. Photo: Dr K.R.W. Hammett. B, a blush-pink form by a heritage home in Devonport, Auckland. Photo: Rod Bieleski.

B Fig. 2 The classical deep pink form of Amaryllis belladonna. A, edging a patch of bush on Waiheke Island. B, close-up of flowers. Photos: Rod Bieleski.

18 New Zealand Garden Journal, 2013, Vol. 16(1)