Word origin unknown
Perennial herbs with creeping rhizomes with or without an associated bulb. Leaves deciduous, stalked, usually spirally arranged, with the bases forming a leek-like speckled pseudostem; leaf blades narrowly to broadly ovate and with a midrib. Flower clusters many-flowered, appearing before or with the new leaves, the stalk often speckled. Spathe bracts more or less persistent, containing the flowers like a loose brush, sometimes withering when the flowers form a ball. Perianth mostly red, pink, or white; lobes narrow. Stamen filaments much longer than the flower lobes. Ovary 3-chambered with 1 or 2 ovules per chamber. Fruit a red berry; seeds about 1 cm wide, blackish round.
Pot plants and border perennials.
Both the species cultivated in Australia were formerly placed in Haemanthus.
Division of clumps, removal of offsets, or seed.
Rhizome present; leaves thin, midribbed and not 2 ranked cf. Haemanthus; flower head shaving-brush-like or spherical.
About 9 species in Africa, south of the Sahara, and on the Arabian peninsula.
Friis & Nordal (1976).
Source: (2005). Narcissus. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 5. Flowering plants. Monocotyledons. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
