Crinum asiaticumL.

poisonbulb

WFO wfo-0000764396 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Crinum asiaticum, photographed by Greg Tasney
fig. a Greg Tasney, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-01-24 / obs. 177072996

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 45 botanical countries

Regions where Crinum asiaticum is native: Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues, Seychelles, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, Christmas I., Cocos (Keeling) Is., India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., South China Sea, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, New South Wales, Norfolk Is., Northern Territory, Queensland, Fiji, Gilbert Is., New Caledonia, Samoa, Vanuatu China SoutheastJapanTaiwanAssamBangladeshBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamNew South WalesNorthern TerritoryQueenslandFijiNew Caledonia MauritiusRéunionRodriguesSeychellesKoreaNansei-shotoAndaman Is.Christmas I.MaldivesNicobar Is.South China SeaNorfolk Is.SamoaVanuatu
Native distribution of Crinum asiaticum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Christmas I. XMS
Cocos (Keeling) Is. CKI
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maldives MDV
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
South China Sea SCS
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China Southeast CHS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Taiwan TAI
Fiji FIJ PACIFIC
Gilbert Is. GIL
New Caledonia NWC
Samoa SAM
Vanuatu VAN
Mauritius MAU AFRICA
Réunion REU
Rodrigues ROD
Seychelles SEY
New South Wales NSW AUSTRALASIA
Norfolk Is. NFK
Northern Territory NTA
Queensland QLD

Not drawn on the map: Ogasawara-shoto, Cocos (Keeling) Is., Gilbert Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 149 in flower of 204 examined

Proportion of examined Crinum asiaticum in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 15 22 68% 47% to 84%
Feb 4 10 40% 17% to 69%
Mar 5 10 50% 24% to 76%
Apr 7 12 58% 32% to 81%
May 0 4 too few examined
Jun 10 12 83% 55% to 95%
Jul 16 19 84% 62% to 94%
Aug 10 18 56% 34% to 75%
Sep 12 20 60% 39% to 78%
Oct 23 26 88% 71% to 96%
Nov 24 28 86% 69% to 94%
Dec 23 23 100% 86% to 100%

Peak flowering in Dec. Each bar is the share of Crinum asiaticum observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 149 of 204 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,186 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.1 °C 19.0 °C 25.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.6 °C 29.0 °C 33.3 °C
Annual rainfall 961 mm 2,132 mm 3,628 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 25 mm 206 mm 625 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,186 research-grade observations of Crinum asiaticum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 51 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Amaryllis carnosa Herb.Ham. ex Hook.f.
  • Bulbine asiatica Gaertn.
  • Crinum albiflorum Noronha
  • Crinum angustifolium Herb. ex Steud.
  • Crinum anomalum Herb.
  • Crinum asiaticum var. declinatum Herb.
  • Crinum asiaticum var. procerum (Herb. & Carey) Baker
  • Crinum australe Donn
  • Crinum australe var. canaliculatum (Roxb.) Herb.
  • Crinum australe var. exaltatum (Herb.) Herb.
  • Crinum australe var. pedunculatum (R.Br.) Herb.
  • Crinum australe var. rubricaule Herb.
  • Crinum bancanum Kurz
  • Crinum brachyandrum Herb.
  • Crinum bracteatum Willd.
  • Crinum brevifolium Roxb.
  • Crinum brevilimbum Carey ex Herb.
  • Crinum canaliculatum Roxb.
  • Crinum carinifolium Stokes
  • Crinum chinense Lodd. ex Kunth
  • Crinum coriifolium Hallier f.
  • Crinum declinatum Herb.
  • Crinum douglasii F.M.Bailey
  • Crinum exaltatum Herb.

and 27 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.