My favorite among my loot from her is this Crinum 'Ellen Bosanquet'. It blooms only once a year just like the hippeastrums, but this has a delightfully spicy sweet fragrance. It has reddish-purplish flowers with more than 6 flowers per scape. Mine flowered first in 2014, stopped for 2 years, and this year has 8 flowers on its 2 ft scape. And there are 2 scapes per plant. However, they didn't open at the same time. Someone commented on my Facebook wall that it is the plant's defense to withstand stresses like our heat and drought. I agree with that. So the duration of the whole blooming stalk lasted for more than a week.
Crinum 'Ellen Bosanquet'is a vigorously multiplying hybrid. It was hybridized in Florida during the 1920s by Louis Bosanquet who named it after his wife. Here in my hot tropical garden, it suffers growth during the dry hot months from March-April, but flowers after the first heavy rains in May. Despite the only single flowering per year, it certainly is a lovely asset in a garden.
