An Amaryllis from Taiwan

We were in Taiwan in March 1995 for a holiday and it was great trip, travelling on our own. One of the best part was a hike through the spectacular Tarako Gorge where we get to stay in one of the churches there as well as in a Chinese palace-like hotel. It was great to see all the flowers and fruit orchards of that area - one of the orchard was a pear orchard. Another great place was the flower and vegetable market in Taipei. From that market, we bought quite a few varieties of the amaryllis - all with giant blooms! We brought the plants/bulbs from Taiwan to Malaysia and planted it in our Petaling Jaya garden. In 2008, we dug up the bulbs and then replanted in our Kuching garden. So they are old old plants :-)

Some seventeen (17) years later after we bought the plants (and nearly four (4) years after we moved to Kuching), one of the  amaryllis blooms again in our garden here in Kuching. This is a variety of the hippeastrum reticulatum var. striatifolium. 

It is one beautiful glorious giant bloom!

We were very excited when the first flower bud came up ....

 

 

  

A peek at the slightly open flower bud .... 

 

 

In full bloom, is it not gorgeous?

A close-up shot of the flower ...

 The flower from the back ...

 

Now we are waiting to see if the rest of the amaryllis bulbs we bought 17 years ago are going to bloom!