Bulbine glauca (Raf.) E.M.Watson
rock lily
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
Bulbine glauca is also known as rock lily. The genus Bulbine is made up of about fifty species. Most are native to Southern or Eastern Africa, but five species, including B. glauca, are native to Australia.
Text from Wikipedia, “Bulbine glauca”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.
About the genus · Bulbine
Bulbine is a genus of plants in the family Asphodelaceae and subfamily Asphodeloideae, named for the bulb-shaped tuber of many species. It was formerly placed in the Liliaceae. It is found chiefly in Southern Africa, with a few species extending into tropical Africa and a few others in Australia and Yemen.
Text from Wikipedia, “Bulbine”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.
At a glance
Also known as Bulbine hookeri Kunth; Bulbine suavis Lindl.; Bulbinopsis terrae-victoriae Poelln.; Nemopogon glaucum Raf.
Cultivation
Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Bulbine, 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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (December to July in the northern hemisphere).
This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.
The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (512 mm of 716 mm) takes 8 months, June to January. Mean temperature moves 11.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: December to July.
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 716 mm a year, wettest November at 71 mm, driest April at 49 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
716 mm a year at the habitat, 512 mm of it June to January. Wettest month November at 71 mm, driest April at 49 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 541 mm to 968 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: 13 to 46 mol/m²/day.
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 46 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 9, the highest 90th-percentile month 48).
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 -1.5 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -1.5 °C, the absolute minimum -3.3 °C, about 22 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 2.3 °C in July (across the envelope cells -1.1 °C to 6.4 °C), warmest day 23.4 °C in January (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -1.5 °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.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 64% 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
Figures by month
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 23 / 20–27 | 23 / 20–26 | 20 / 18–23 | 17 / 15–20 | 14 / 11–16 | 11 / 8–13 | 10 / 7–12 | 11 / 8–14 | 13 / 11–17 | 16 / 14–19 | 19 / 16–22 | 21 / 18–25 |
| Night °C | 13 / 10–15 | 13 / 10–16 | 11 / 8–14 | 8 / 5–11 | 5 / 2–9 | 3 / 0–7 | 2 / -1–6 | 3 / -1–7 | 5 / 1–8 | 7 / 4–10 | 9 / 7–12 | 11 / 8–14 |
| Rain mm | 56 / 41–71 | 53 / 33–77 | 51 / 39–67 | 49 / 41–66 | 51 / 36–72 | 64 / 46–100 | 64 / 45–104 | 64 / 46–103 | 62 / 48–88 | 64 / 49–86 | 71 / 48–92 | 67 / 51–85 |
| DLI | 45 / 41–48 | 40 / 36–42 | 32 / 27–35 | 24 / 18–26 | 17 / 12–18 | 13 / 9–15 | 14 / 11–17 | 20 / 16–22 | 28 / 23–31 | 37 / 32–39 | 42 / 38–44 | 46 / 41–48 |
| RH % | 56 / 52–60 | 57 / 54–61 | 58 / 54–61 | 60 / 57–62 | 62 / 60–64 | 64 / 61–67 | 64 / 60–67 | 61 / 59–65 | 60 / 58–62 | 58 / 56–60 | 58 / 55–60 | 56 / 53–60 |
Each figure is the median across the 360 grid cells holding the 683 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 2639:6551 (-41.975, 147.575). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -3.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -1.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.3 °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 360 distinct grid cells holding the 683 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2639:6551 (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 -42.00_147.500, lapse-corrected -114 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 322 m (cell mean).
Natural habitat
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Donald Hobern, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Bryce Watts-Parker, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (4); (c) Nina Kerr, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).
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 Bulbine glauca, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.
Related
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.
Acacia dealbata Blue Wattle
Grevillea lanigera Proteaceae
Dianella tasmanica Tasman flax-lily
Eucalyptus pulverulenta Silver-leaved Mountain Gum
Dicksonia antarctica Australian Tree Ferns
Acacia melanoxylon Australian BlackwoodOther Bulbine 87 in the reference
Bulbine abyssinica African Beardstyle
Bulbine alata Asphodelaceae
Bulbine alooides Common Kopieva Bulbine alveolata Asphodelaceae
Bulbine angustifolia Asphodelaceae
Bulbine annua Asphodelaceae
Bulbine asphodeloides Copaiba
Bulbine audreyae Outeniqua Kopieva
Bulbine bachmannii Asphodelaceae
Bulbine bruynsii Asphodelaceae
Bulbine bulbosa Bulbine Lily Bulbine capensis Asphodelaceae all 88 ›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 answeredgbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zamclimate answeredwikidata 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: skippedinat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedinat.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 answeredopenalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedEvery upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 18 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.








