Last year I bought ten seeds of Hippeastrum cybister from a dealer in Washington DC. Having never grown this kind of seed before I was somewhat astonished by his sowing instructions. I was told to float the seeds on the surface of a glass of water! As the seeds are large and papery this was easy to do. The seeds were said to germinate a seed root within 10 days if set on a sunny window sill. My experience, rather worrying at that considering each seed cost $10, was that germination took longer - about 21 days. Eventually there were 7 tiny radicles showing under the bottom of the floating seeds. At this point I sowed them on potting soil with a thin covering of very fine aquarium sand/ pebbles and waited. A further week or so and the first leaves began to appear. It is now some 3 months since. I have lightly fed the plants and all ten seeds have germinated and each plantlet has made three leaves. Keeping the plants green and growing as long as possible is vital to producing bulblets that will survive winter dormancy, or better, not go dormant at all but keep growing into the following spring and summer; thus hastening the time taken to reach flowering size.
Now that I've had success (fingers crossed & touch wood) I really ought to try to obtain seed of some other Hippies.
