Scilla peruviana

Plant Characteristics

Habit		bulbous
Height:	⇕	12 in"in" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 12.
Width:	⇔	18 in"in" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 18.
Lifespan:	⌛	perennial
Bloom:	❀	early spring, mid spring, late spring, early summer, mid summer, late summer

Cultivation

Exposure:	☼	sun
Features:	✓	flowers
USDA Zones:		8 to 11
Flower features:	❀	blue, purple

Scientific Names

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Portuguese Squill (Scilla peruviana) is a species of Scilla native to the western Mediterranean region in Iberia, Italy, and northwest Africa.

It is a bulb-bearing herbaceous perennial plant. The bulb is 6–8 cm diameter, white with a covering of brown scales. The leaves are linear, 20–60 cm long and 1–4 cm broad, with 5-15 leaves produced each spring. The flowering stem is 15–40 cm tall, bearing a dense pyramidal raceme of 40-100 flowers; each flower is blue, 1–2 cm diameter, with six tepals.

It is commonly grown as an ornamental plant for its spring flowers; several cultivars are available ranging in colour from white to light or dark blue, or violet. In some areas it is also known, confusingly, as Hyacinth of Peru, Peruvian Scilla, or Cuban Lily.

Read about Scilla peruviana in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Scilla peruviana, Linn. (S. ciliaris, Hort. S. Clusii, Parl.). Cuban Lily. Peruvian Jacinth. Hyacinth of Peru (once thought to be a Peruvian plant). Bulb large, ovate, tunicate: lvs. many, broad-linear, 6-12 in. long; margins ciliated with minute white bristles, channeled: scape robust, terminated by a many-fld. conic broad and compact raceme of purple, lilac, reddish, or whitish fls.: fls. rotate; corolla persistent; anthers short. May, June. Region of Medit., not Peru.— The hyacinth of Peru is not hardy in Mass. It propagates freely by offsets. It flowers all through May and June and forms a most attractive object in the herbaceous border or bed. S. peruviana, however, has one fault that may tell against it in the opinion of many cultivators—it never flowers two years in succession; it seems to need a whole year's rest after the effort of producing its large spike of fls. CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

External links

• w:Scilla peruviana. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Scilla peruviana QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)