Description
This makes bulbs like small apples with a notably short neck. It grows on a Mediterranean cycle, being dormant during summer but leafing up with the coming of autumn rains. The ornamental, blue-green, glaucous leaves are present with the flowers which emerge in late autumn on 30-90+ cm scapes each bearing several flowers, the larger the bulb, the greater the number of flowers. These are of a good size, pure white flowers, not unlike a large open daffodil with a small trumpet. They are highly fragrant, especially in the evening.
Soils or composts should be fertile and well-drained, with water (and feeding) from Sept to May-June and an appropriate dry summer rest, which the plant will indicate, by leaf yellowing and dormancy.
Pancratium canariense is endemic to the Canary Islands. In the wild it grows not in the hottest open sites, but in less extreme, cooler, more sheltered, rocky environments with good drainage. Having said all of this, it will not be reliably hardy anywhere in the UK (as is the case for almost all Pancratium) and it is best under frost free glass. In milder regions such as the Mediterranean and California it will grow outside.
