Cyrtanthus clavatus

Bill Dijk (Mar 17, 2002)

Greg Pettit

From the Journal of the Royal Horicultural Society, 1848:

Gastronema sanguineum, A native of Caffraria.

A hollow glaucous stem, four or five inches high, supports a single sessile flower of its own length, surrounded at the base by a pair of long narrow spathes. The tube is slender and greenhish, and expands into a deep-rose obconical throat, having six crimson streak along the middle. The limb is very deep rose-colour, with six equal-spreading, oblong, whole-coloured segments. The leaves are nearly as tall as the flower, dark green, in a very small degree glaucous, and gradually widen towards the end, which is blunt.

A greenhouse bulg, which should be potted in rich sandy loam, and treated like Habranthus and similar bulbs. It is increased by offsets.

It is very handsome, deserving general cultivation even in the most select collections.