Description
There are several red-flowered forms of this species in cultivation, there is however only one pink form known in cultivation at the moment. It is reported that various pink forms are more frequent near Montevideo and to the north of Buenos Aires (where white forms are also rumoured). The name spathacea has been applied to one, lovely slightly ducky pink-flowered form of the type. This was called Rhodophiala bifida var. spathacea ((Herb.) Traub, Pl. Life 12: 71. 1956) though Traub later rethought this and published Rhodophiala spathacea (Herb.) Traub, Pl. Life 17: 55. 1961. Sadly you will find it mentioned only rarely in the literature, and it is even less frequently offered.
As easy to grow as the normal form and a delightful colour variant. As with all of the forms, you need to be patient whilst the bulbs establish and adjust themselves to the correct growing depth, then they take off, making their superb flowers regularly every August-September as the colder, rainier Autumn season starts, be it the hurricane season in the USA (where one form is naturalised) or the onset of winter rainfall in its native S. American habitats.
The fertile forms of bifida, such as spathacea, naturally make smaller bulbs than the much more well-known, sterile, triploid bifida form (from Texas) in cultivation. We do our best on these to send what we think are flowering-sized bulbs but like many Amaryllidaceae, this can fail to flower, after disturbance, in the first year after planting. Thus a slightly smaller, non-flowering sized bulb will grow and establish and then flower in the same year as a flowering-sized one which has sulked for a year.
Incidentally beware of Chinese sellers on Ebay offering this name, what you get is a hybrid white Lilium!
Rhodophiala bifida spathacea