Species
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Brunsvigia orientalis (L.) Aiton ex Eckl.

Chandelier Lily, Chandelier Plant, King Candelabra, candelabra lily

Climate known 72 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Brunsvigia orientalis, commonly known as the candelabra flower, red candelabra flower, king candelabra, chandelier lily, chandelier plant and sore-eye flower, is a geophyte belonging to the Amaryllidaceae family. The species is endemic to the Western Cape.

Text from Wikipedia, “Brunsvigia orientalis”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Brunsvigia

Brunsvigia is a genus of African flowering plants in the family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. It contains about 20 species native to southeastern and southern Africa from Tanzania to the Cape Provinces of South Africa.

Text from Wikipedia, “Brunsvigia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Amaryllidaceae
Described by
(L.) Aiton ex Eckl.
Native to
Cape Provinces
Wild records
1320 in range· 275 open

At a glance

Warmest month
24°C
Feb, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
518mm/yr
11 wet months · peak Jul 65 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–50DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Brunsvigia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a winter growing season, October to April in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 518 mm a year, wettest July at 65 mm, driest February at 23 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 50 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 7.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Amaryllis multiflora D.Dietr.; Amaryllis nobilis Salisb.; Amaryllis orientalis L.; Brunsvigia gigantea Heist.; Brunsvigia multiflora W.T.Aiton and 6 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Brunsvigia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, October to April in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, southern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (383 mm of 518 mm) falls in April to October, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 14.7 °C against a yearly mean of 16.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: October to April.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 518 mm a year, wettest July at 65 mm, driest February at 23 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

518 mm a year at the habitat, 383 mm of it April to October. Wettest month July at 65 mm, driest February at 23 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 340 mm to 926 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 50 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 50 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 15, the highest 90th-percentile month 54).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 7.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 7.3 °C, the absolute minimum 4.9 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 9.6 °C in July (across the envelope cells 6.2 °C to 12.2 °C), warmest day 24.2 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 7.3 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 62% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 16 °C in Jul to 24 °C in Feb; mean night from 10 °C in Jul to 17 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 518 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 373 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 4.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 32.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°32.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)4.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 16–50RH 59–62 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 373 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C24 / 21–3024 / 21–3023 / 20–2821 / 19–2419 / 17–2117 / 16–1816 / 15–1817 / 15–1818 / 16–2020 / 17–2321 / 18–2623 / 20–28
Night °C17 / 16–1817 / 16–1916 / 15–1814 / 13–1613 / 10–1510 / 7–1310 / 6–1210 / 7–1211 / 8–1313 / 11–1414 / 13–1616 / 15–17
Rain mm25 / 8–5423 / 8–4429 / 12–5960 / 27–8351 / 37–11361 / 35–14465 / 41–15762 / 44–12642 / 29–8642 / 16–7932 / 13–6826 / 11–57
DLI50 / 47–5444 / 41–4836 / 33–4026 / 25–2919 / 18–2116 / 15–1718 / 17–1923 / 22–2431 / 30–3239 / 37–4347 / 44–5050 / 47–54
RH %59 / 53–6460 / 54–6561 / 54–6562 / 56–6461 / 57–6359 / 56–6159 / 56–6161 / 58–6261 / 58–6260 / 56–6259 / 54–6359 / 54–63

Each figure is the median across the 373 grid cells holding the 1301 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2489:3988 (-34.475, 19.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 4.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 7.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 373 distinct grid cells holding the 1301 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2489:3988 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -34.50_19.375, lapse-corrected -23 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 108 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeCape Provinces
Kew's description“bulbous geophyte” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-34.066, 18.583 · in the densest population, 949 records (72% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1320 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 275 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 24 km away. 5 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 19 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1320 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Brunsvigia orientalisBrunsvigia orientalisBrunsvigia orientalisBrunsvigia orientalisBrunsvigia orientalisBrunsvigia orientalisBrunsvigia orientalisBrunsvigia orientalis

Photographs: (c) magriet b, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (5); no rights reserved · CC0 (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Brunsvigia orientalis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Alkaloids from Brunsvigia orientalis
Françesc Viladomat, Giovanna R. Almanza, Carles Codina, Jaume Bastida (1996) · Phytochemistry
Desiccation sensitivity of excised embryonic axes of selected amaryllid species
Sershen, P. Berjak, N.W. Pammenter (2008) · Seed Science Research
Assembly and disassembly of bird pollination communities at the Cape of Africa
Sjirk Geerts (2011) · SUNScholar (Stellenbosch University)
Does the Prostrate-leaved Geophyte Brunsvigia orientalis Utilize Soil-derived CO2 for Photosynthesis?
Michael D. Cramer, C. Kleizen, Carl Morrow (2007) · Annals of Botany
Study of intergeneric hybridization in Hippeastrum
Yaowapha Jirakiattikul (1999) · UTAS Research Repository
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Brunsvigia orientalis (L.) Aiton ex Eckl.
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2026)
Brunsvigia orientalis (L.) Aiton ex Eckl.
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2026) · DiSSCo
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Brunsvigia 18 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 9 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.