Atamasco lilies blooming near the entrance to the caves at Florida Caverns State Park

''Zephyranthes atamasca'', commonly known as the atamasco-lily or more generally a rain-lily, is native to the southeastern United States. It grows in swampy forests and coastal prairies, preferring acid boggy soils rich with leaf mold. Following the appearance of broad, grassy leaves in early winter, it blooms in March or April. It has several narrow, linear basal leaves about wide and long. Its native range extends from

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

north to

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and west to

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

.1. Zephyranthes atamasca (Linnaeus) Herbert

Flora of North America The ''Flora of North America North of Mexico'' (usually referred to as ''FNA'') is a multivolume work describing the native plants and naturalized plants of North America, including the United States, Canada, St. Pierre and Miquelon, and Greenla ...

The species is also naturalized in

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

and in the

Mariana Islands The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas; in Chamorro: ''Manislan Mariånas'') are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, betw ...

. Both its leaves and bulbs are poisonous.

Taxonomy

The scientific name of this species has a somewhat complex history. In 1753, in the first edition of ''

Species Plantarum ' (Latin for "The Species of Plants") is a book by Carl Linnaeus, originally published in 1753, which lists every species of plant known at the time, classified into genera. It is the first work to consistently apply binomial names and was the ...

'',

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

placed it in the genus ''Amaryllis'' using the epithet "''Atamasca''" (the capital "A" showing that this was intended as a noun, not an adjective). However, in the second edition of ''Species Plantarum'', he changed the spelling to "''Atamasco''" (again with a capital "A"). "Atamasco" is the Native American name. When in 1821, William Herbert transferred the species to his genus ''

Zephyranthes ''Zephyranthes'' is a genus of temperate and tropical plants in the Amaryllis family, subfamily Amaryllidoideae, native to the Western Hemisphere and widely cultivated as ornamentals. Following the expansion of the genus in 2019, which no ...

'' he used Linnaeus's later spelling for the epithet, i.e. ''Zephyranthes atamasco'', this being the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

of the genus. Many sources have used this spelling subsequently. However, the

International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants The ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with the formal botanical names that are given to plants, fungi and a few other groups of organisms, all those "trad ...

conserves the type of ''Zephyranthes'' using the spelling ''atamasca''.

Synonyms

Synonyms include the following: * ''Amaryllis atamasco'' L., orth. var. :Note: ''Amaryllis atamasco''

Blanco Blanco (''white'' or ''blank'' in Spanish) or Los Blancos may refer to: People *Blanco (surname) Fictional characters *Blanco, a hobbit in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth *Blanco Webb, character in the BBC sitcom ''Porridge'' * El Blanco, albino ...

= ''

Hippeastrum miniatum ''Hippeastrum miniatum'' is a flowering perennial herbaceous bulbous plant, in the family Amaryllidaceae, native to Peru. Description Flowers are bright orange-red (vermilion) with up to six flowers per stem. Bulbs ovate, 5–8 cm in len ...

'' * ''Amaryllis aramasco'' L., orth. var. * ''Amaryllis atanasia'' Crantz * ''Amaryllis pulchella'' Salisb. * ''Amaryllis verecunda'' Salisb. * ''Amaryllis virginiensis'' Oken * ''Atamasco atamasco'' (L.) Greene, nom. inval. * ''Zephyranthes atamasco'' var. ''minor'' Herb.

References

* Garden Bulbs for the South (1994)

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q8069320 atamasca Flora of the Southeastern United States Garden plants of North America Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora without expected TNC conservation status