There is quite a long description of Worsleya rayneri in "The Vanishing Garden - a Conservation Guide to Garden Plants", by Chris Brickell and Fay Sharman - published 1986. This fascinating book - which covers rarities deemed at that time to be at risk of vanishing from cultivation - also covers Pamianthe.On the basis that many people won't have access to it, I thought it worth paraphrasing. There is a colour illustration of the plant flowering, & a couple of line drawings too.
The genus is named after Arthington Worsley, "..a mining engineer who travelled extensively in S. America, & became a specialist in bulbous plants on his retirement to Middlesex". The flower colour is "deep blue-mauve or blue-violet, fading almost to white in the centre and often copiously flecked red-purple. ...distinguished from the closely related genera Hippeastrum and Amaryllis not only by the flower colour but by the long false stems, some 2 to 5 feet on mature plants. These are made up of the tightly folded bases of the leathery evergreen leaves, scimitar shaped and pendent, which may themselves be up to 3 feet long."
In habitat, the bulb grows "..in exposed positions in full sun. The bulbs are anchored to the soft, porous, granite-like rock by fleshy, thong-like roots.These penetrate deeply into crevices filled with black leafmould." Worsley himself wrote (in 1929) about these bulbs "..growing on ledges..with little foothold but the ...heavy storms often fling hundreds of great bulbs down the precipices. But they obtain some support from a species of twining Philodendron which intertwines itself among the bulbs and their roots, and forms a kind of rope ....."
Normal min. night temps. are reported to be 40-45 F in the dry winter months, subject to occasional ground frosts. In summer, the temp.seldom exceeds 80F & the air is saturated by brief evening thunderstorms that constantly occur in the mountains.
