Boophone

The name is spelled several ways, formerly, Boophane was favoured but now Boöphone, with each “o” pronounced separately is considered correct. The genus is related to Brunsvigia and both have their flowers in dense umbels. In Boophone, there can be 100 flowers in one of these! The leaves appear later, after flowering, by which stage the flower heads have set seed and dried to become tumbleweeds.

Bulbs can become huge in time and they will need space and a good root run if they are to do well, however the results are worth every effort.

Cultivation should be in a large pot or bedded out, under glass in UK, in a very well-drained, sandy, fertile soil, with the plants rested dry in the summer.

Bulbs and the juice of these species are very toxic. Preparations have been used for arrow poison, and the common name of ‘sore-eye flower’ describes what happens if the juice or sap enters the eye. Sap is used as a caustic and styptic by some tribes and as psychoactive (sometimes fatally so) infusions by others.