Leaf margins flat or slightly to moderately undulate. Spathe bracts 20-50 mm long, up to 50 mm wide, reaching well below tepal tips. Tepals 12-17 mm long. Filaments 20-25 mm long. Unripe anthers cream. From: Duncan, GD. 2016. The Amaryllidaceae of southern Africa. Umdaus Press, Pretoria. [All rights reserved]

The plants sometimes occur as scattered solitary individuals but are mostly encountered in groups of up to 20 bulbs within dense colonies sometimes numbering up to 5000 individuals such as in the Matjies River Nature Reserve in the eastern Cederberg. Near Rosh Pinah in southwestern Namibia it occurs in association with sparse succulent vegetation in exceptionally arid conditions on central slopes of steep southwestern hill flanks, as well as in close proximity to seasonal watercourses on lower slopes. Here, the bulbs are almost fully exposed, whereas on dolerite outcrops of the Bokkeveld plateau they are slightly to moderately exposed. Plants of the taxon occur in a range of vegetation types including Goariep Mountain Succulent Shrubland, Nieuwoudtville-Roggeveld Dolerite Renosterveld and Swartruggens Quartzite Karoo, the latter a transitional zone between fynbos and succulent karoo. Leaf margins in northern populations, such as those in Namibia and the Richtersveld, are usually flat, rarely very slightly wavy, whereas those in southern populations on the Bokkeveld and Roggeveld plateaus are slightly to moderately wavy, and those in the Matjies River Nature Reserve in the eastern Cederberg vary from flat to slightly or moderately undulate within populations. Subsp. ernesti-ruschii commences vegetative growth in late autumn. The leaves grow through winter and die back in spring, followed by flowering from mid- to late summer, with a peak in February. From: Duncan, GD. 2016. The Amaryllidaceae of southern Africa. Umdaus Press, Pretoria. [All rights reserved]

It is associated with steep, rocky north-, northwest-, south- and southwest-facing boulder-strewn quartzite, granite and dolerite slopes and ravines, and dolerite hills and flats where it grows in heavy clay. From: Duncan, GD. 2016. The Amaryllidaceae of southern Africa. Umdaus Press, Pretoria. [All rights reserved]

The subsp. ernesti-ruschii has an inland distribution from Numais and Rosh Pinah in southwestern Namibia to South Africa where it occurs in the Richtersveld National Park, at Ploegberg and Goariep Mountain, Vioolsdrif, Langberg northeast of Kliprand, on the Bokkeveld plateau, in the western Karoo, eastern Cederberg and on the Roggeveld plateau. From: Duncan, GD. 2016. The Amaryllidaceae of southern Africa. Umdaus Press, Pretoria. [All rights reserved]

December to February