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Clivia miniata 'San Marcos Yellow' (Select Yellow Clivia) - An evergreen bulb-like perennial that forms clumps 2 feet tall and wide with narrow long dark green blunt-tipped leaves. Usually orange flowering, this unique yellow flowering form typically commences flowering in mid to late winter and continues through early spring. After flowering, plants can produce showy fruit which, like the flowers, are yellow.
This very tough evergreen plant is best suited to dry shaded locations in fairly frost-free gardens, but it will tolerate situations with regular irrigation as well as winter temperatures into the low 20s F. In colder climates plants can be brought in during the winter.
The earliest record of yellow flowering Clivia miniata is from when one was displayed in Europe in 1888 and another was discovered around this time in the wild in KwaZuluNatal. The plant was formally described in 1899 as Clivia miniata var. citrina by sir William Watson, whose name was commemorated by the naming of Watsonia. Plants from KwaZuluNatal region made their way to Kew Gardens as early as 1893 and was given the cultivar name 'Eshowe Yellow' for the town Eshowe near where the plant was collected. Clivia miniata comes from dapple shaded areas in forests of Kwazulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Swaziland in South Africa. The genus was named Clivia in 1828 by the Kew botanist John Lindley when he described Clivia nobilis with the name honoring Charlotte Percy (Lady Charlotte Clive), the Duchess of Northumberland (1787–1866) and the specific epithet is the Latin word for "cinnabar", the color of red lead in reference to the color of the flowers. For more information about the species see our listing for Clivia miniata.
Our yellow Clivia is a result of a controlled breeding program initiated at our nursery in the mid-1980s using Santa Barbara clivia breeder Dave Conway's amazing yellow selection Clivia miniata 'Lemon Chiffon' as the seed parent and pollinating it with plants received from clivia enthusiast Dr. Glynne Couvillion in Santa Barbara and those from Watsonville clivia breeder, the late Joe Solomone. After years of careful hand pollination and isolation of mother stock we were able to release our first crops of yellow flowering seed grown plants in 1993, calling them "the first affordable yellow clivias". We also grow a large flowered selected form we released in 2005 called Clivia miniata 'Arturo's Yellow' and continued to grow Dave Conway's 'Lemon Chiffon' that served as our original seed parent for the 'San Marcos Yellow' plants and in 2020 we released plants of Sir Peter Smithers' 'Vico Yellow', "once called the world's best yellow Clivia", which we had been building stock from a single plant received in 1998.
This information about Clivia miniata 'San Marcos Yellow' displayed on this web page is based on research we have conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations we have made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how our crops have performed in containers in the nursery field. Where appropriate, we will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant.
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