Sprekelia formosissima 'Mobile Queen'

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Hello, welcome to Juniper Level Botanic Garden, the home of Plant Delights Nursery.

[00:00:06]There's one question I always hate to answer, and that is what is my favorite plant?

[00:00:13]Well, I'm kneeling down behind one of my absolute favorite plants. This is the Aztec Lily.

[00:00:23]It's Sprekelia formosissima.

[00:00:27]Sprekelia is just somebody's family named Spreckle.

[00:00:31]Um formosissima um means very beautiful.

[00:00:37]And the Aztec Lily, as you might guess from its common name, is native to um Mexico.

[00:00:46]I don't know if it's widely spread than that.

[00:00:49]Um it's not a lily.

[00:00:51]Um it's in the amaryllis family.

[00:00:55]And it is a very close relative of the common amaryllis. Well, that's another name change.

[00:01:04]The modern the common amaryllis are now in the genus Hippeastrum.

[00:01:11]But they're they are closely enough related that you can cross the two and come up with hybrids between them.

[00:01:20]Now, I don't think they've improved on anything by hybridizing um because um well, let me go back one step.

[00:01:31]The uh Aztec Lilies, as you can see, are strongly bilaterally symmetrical. If you drew a line down the center of the flower, each half would be like a mirror image of the other.

[00:01:45]Typical amaryllis family, I mean, amaryllis flower is radially symmetrical.

[00:01:51]And when you cross the two, you end up with flowers that aren't don't have this exquisite geometry of the Aztec lily uh and are more like an amaryllis flower. So, to my mind, what's the point?

[00:02:11]But, um this is our selection Mo- Mobile Queen.

[00:02:18]Um um and it's in full bloom in um the almost the middle of May, but it will re-bloom several times over the co- cross excuse me, over the course of the summer.

[00:02:36]Uh and into early fall, often, you know, many months in between bloom, but retaining this beautiful foliage um in between, and, you know, one day you're out in the garden and you realize it's in bloom again, so you stop what you're doing and just enjoy the flowers.

[00:02:54]You could certainly pick the flowers and take them in the house.

[00:02:58]Um I'm sure they're just as good a flower as an amaryllis flower.

[00:03:04]Um they want a sunny location and just average soil, like their amaryllis relatives, they're growing from a bulb.

[00:03:13]The plant disappears over winter and regrows um every spring.

[00:03:19]Um it's an easy plant.

[00:03:22]This one was planted in oh, 2011.

[00:03:27]So, it's now 15 years old. It was probably planted out of our sort of standard 3 and 1/2 inch pots, so it's multiplied into a nice clump in 15 years.

[00:03:39]And in your own garden, you could divide this clump and spread it around.

[00:03:44]But, um it's really a beautiful thing and so easy in the garden.

[00:03:50]Um and I think everyone ought to have it in their garden if they have a sunny enough spot for it.

[00:03:58]Thank you very much for your time today and I hope to see you again in the garden.