The winter rainfall region's bulbs on the other hand are mostly from arid habitats and are found fairly deep below the surface, usually flowering before producing leaves.

Haemanthus have from one to six leaves, ranging from broad, leathery and prostrate to narrow, crisped or succulent and erect, with a variety of surface textures from smooth to extremely hairy or even sticky.

Haemanthus species are extremely variable in their habitat requirements - from coastal dunes to mountain tops, rocky ledges to seasonally-inundated gravel plains and bogs.

Some species, such as H. canaliculatus, are to some extent fire-dependent in that they need occasional burning of their fynbos habitat to clear undergrowth in order to flower.

The troubled English botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury (1761–1829) in his 1866 posthumous publication 'Genera of Plants', placed H. amarylloides under Melicho and H. albiflos under Diacles.

The genus was illustrated in Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin's description of the rarities in the glasshouses of Schönbrunn, Plantarum Rariorum Horti Caesarei Schoenbrunnensis Descriptiones Et Icones (1797–98).