Haemanthus albiflos

Haemanthus albiflos is one of the lovely evergreens in this family of Amaryllidaceae. It is easy to grow and will give all year round pleasure with just a little looking after. Why not try it?

Haemanthus is endemic to South Africa and is a genus of twenty one species. Some species bulbs have been used as an asthma remedy and as a diuretic, and foliage has been used to dress wounds.

The genus may be winter-growing, summer-growing or evergreen. The bulb is large and fleshy and the deciduous species have two leaves each year.

In the evergreen species such as H. albiflos, the leaves often remain green for more than a year so often you will have six leaves. The inflorescence is an umbel of numerous small upright flowers. They are surrounded by a large membranous, fleshy spathes.

Haemanthus species are best grown in the rockery or fernhouse. I grow mine in a shadehouse or somewhere they will get the morning sun. Propogation is by bulb cuttings, offsets or by seed. Offsets can be removed after they finish flowering.

At this time, I usually repot mine and carefully pull the offsets away from the parent plant, making sure I have some of the root sections on the bulb. I repot them in a good friable potting mix with a little blood and bone. This is usually all they need.They do multiply by offsets quite quickly. They grow very easily from seed also. You can get seed quite often from Rachel Saunders of Silverhill Seeds in South Africa. You can get her page and email address from my Ixia site.

Good growing.

Ixia King

Bill Richardson.

Make sure you keep them out of the frost as it will kill the leaves.

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