Description
Light, moist, humid woodsy conditions suit this plant. Smaller than Cardiocrinum giganteum, at 100cm or so tall, with 5-6 flowers of white, shaded with green and sometimes (but rarely) with a ruby-red mark deep in the throat. The flowers tend to be held on a slender stem well above the leaves, which in turn incline to the form of a basal rosette, more so than in the other Cardiocrinum species. It has hard to define exact botanical differences between this and glehnii, but horticulturally, the two are very distinct, side by side.
The form offered is a seed-grown stock, raised in the UK and most of the plants have new leaves of a lovely copper-red when they emerge. This fades through the year as the leaves mature but it adds interest in spring before flowering.
This species is unique in the genus Cardiocrinum in occasionally (but not invariably) making a second flowering stem, in September.
Picture courtesy of S64, from Wikipedia, published under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2