Flowering amaryllis

The enormous bud split and the four buds like little aliens started making
 a break for freedom

Freshly released and already red but still tightly furled

My favourite plant discovery this winter without doubt is the amaryllis, I am in love.  I know they are not remotely subtle, which is usually my taste, but at this time of year its nice to have something bold and brash brightening up the room.  I bought one of my amaryllis at just the right time, with already a huge stem and a cracking bud atop it.  The bud immediately started to pop when I got it home.  The amaryllis flower may be an elegant and beautiful thing when its fully in bloom, but the way it unfurled from the bud was not pretty.  The whole process was much like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. Despite the bud being ginormous, it was still impressive how much flower was actually packed away into it.  Four rolled flowers struggled out of the one bud, then flopped out horizontally in opposite directions from each other.  Finally each flower unfurled and fully opened into its final lily-like form.  The whole process took several days.

The four individual flowers lowering like helicopter blades into their final positions

This is what I like to call the donkey shot, the first flower down starts to unfurl

Oh what a flower it is!  I knew I would be impressed, and it didn't disappoint.  Each flower is the size of a hand with a lovely open face and long stamen covered in bright yellow pollen contrasting with the vivid orange petals.  These stamen are really rather lovely, just like all lilies are (and yes I know that technically amaryllis are not actually lilies but they look it).  I looked up on wikipedia to make sure that what I wanted to call stamen actually were called that, and funnily enough the example given on wikipedia are amaryllis so they are obviously a great example of a good stamen.  Bold and brassy this plant most certainly is, demanding attention.

So excited about that second bud!

Look at those anthers!  They couldn't get any more pollen on them if
they tried

Although the colour of this amaryllis, which I unfortunately don't know the variety of, is undoubtably lovely in these dark dull days, I personally think it is the form that makes it so striking.  I don't know why an amaryllis feels the need to grow such a long and strapping stem but it gives the plant great structure, commanding attention.  The way the four flowers face away from each other helpfully gives it no bad side, and a lovely symmetry.  The genus name for these bulbs is Hippeastrum which comes from the greek words for 'knight' and 'star' and refers to the star shaped weapon knights used to wield which is such a cool thing to be named after.  The formation of the flowers reminds me of the loudspeakers on school sports pitches that I have seen in films,  Like little floral gramophones.
Having said that it is the form that is impressive there is something about the colour that I can't get my head around.  When put in the light, these orangey red petals are actually glittery.  Not pearlescent or iridescent as you can find in nature although I can't think of a flower that actually has either of these two qualities off the top of my head, but actually glittery with a golden yellow sparkle present right across the petals.

Now you can clearly see the little yellow glittery dots in this picture right?

So now the first flower is out my attention is turned to the second spike that is rapidly making progress. This plant literally grows before your very eyes and it wont be long until its out.  I can't help but think of triffids, not because this plant looks remotely menacing, but because of how fast it grows and how thick the stems are.  My other amaryllis is also making progress so I will update in due course.