''Albuca humilis'' is a

bulb In botany, a bulb is structurally a short stem with fleshy leaves or leaf basesBell, A.D. 1997. ''Plant form: an illustrated guide to flowering plant morphology''. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. that function as food storage organs duri ...

ous flowering plant, placed in the genus '' Albuca'' in the subfamily

Scilloideae Scilloideae (named after the genus ''Scilla'', "squill") is a subfamily of bulbous plants within the family ''Asparagaceae''. Scilloideae is sometimes treated as a separate family Hyacinthaceae, named after the genus ''Hyacinthus''. Scilloideae or ...

of the family

Asparagaceae Asparagaceae, known as the asparagus family, is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. The family name is based on the edible garden asparagus, ''Asparagus officinalis''. Those who live in the temperate c ...

. It is native to southern Africa – to South Africa from the Free State to

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

according to some sources, or to the Drakensberg Mountains of

Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked country, landlocked as an Enclave and exclave, enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the Thabana Ntlenyana, highest mountains in Sou ...

according to others. ''Albuca humilis'' was first described by John Gilbert Baker in 1895. The specific epithet ''humilis'' means "low-growing". It grows from small white

s, each producing only one or two narrow leaves in the summer, dying down in the winter. The flower stem is up to tall, with one to three upward-facing flowers with six tepals up to long. All the tepals are white with a green stripe on the outside; the inner three also have yellow tips. The flowers are strongly scented and have been described as smelling of marzipan. The species is sufficiently hardy to be cultivated in the UK when given some protection by an alpine house or bulb frame.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15517154 humilis Plants described in 1895 Taxa named by John Gilbert Baker