Nerine

Plant Characteristics

Cultivation

Scientific Names

Nerine >

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Read about Nerine in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Nerine (a nereid of Greek mythology)- Amaryllidaceae. Handsome autumn-flowering bulbs from South Africa. Bulb tunicated, mostly without a neck: lvs. appearing after the fls. or with them, usually strap-shaped: fls. in shades of red and pink (varying to white), in few- or many-fld. umbels on a slender or robust scape; spathe- valves beneath the umbel 2, lanceolate; perianth funnel- form, very deeply cut or divided, erect or somewhat decurved, the 6 segms. equal, narrow and more or less crisped or undulate; stamens 6, usually unequal, declined or nearly erect, bearing versatile anthers; style long and slender, straight or somewhat declined: fr. a globose 3-lobed and 3-valved caps., with seeds 1 or few in each cell.—Species 15-18, in Afr. from the Transvaal and Kalahari south to Cape of Good Hope. Monographed by Baker, Flora Capensis, vi (1896-7), from which the following descriptive account is mostly drawn. Nerine is a remarkable genus of tender bulbous plants, of which the commonest species is N. sarniensis, long known as the Guernsey lily from the island where these bulbs are grown to perfection. The winter is their growing season instead of flowering time. They belong to the very small class of autumn-blooming bulbs. The common kinds flower from September to November without any foliage and the leaves are developed all winter. About May the leaves die down and the bulbs rest from May to August. The leaves appear after the flowers in two or three species, but with the flowers in the others. The flowers range from scarlet through salmon and pink shades to white, and are borne in umbels of four to twenty flowers, on scapes varying from 1 to 3 feet long and averaging 1 ½ feet. A trade name is Nerine japonica, which is really a Lycoris; it has black seeds, while all the true nerinea have green seeds. It has, however, the autumn-blooming habit and flowers of the same general appearance as the true nerines. The nerines have two distinct types of beauty, illustrated by Figs. 2474 and 2475. The kinds with the narrow perianth-segments, which are crisped or fluted, have a spidery look and are not so popular as the kinds with broad, flat segments, which make a showier cluster of flowers. The segments vary from 1/12 to ½ inch in width. The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

External links

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