Not from Japan. Nerine sarniensis, Guernsey Lily, and Eurypos lateriflorus, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

In 1634 Jacques-Philipe Cornut (1606-1651) saw this Nerine in a French garden owned by the famed Morin family, well-known nurserymen of Paris. He named it Narcissus japonicus. Apparently a Dutch eastindiaman had earlier been shipwrecked on Guernsey. The Dutch traded heavily with Japan and would return to Europe by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Some of that ship's wreckage among which the bulbs of our plant washed away and quickly brightened the shores of Guernsey. Soon they were growing in Europe and England, too. Cornut incorrectly assumed that our plant hailed from Japan by way of South Africa and Guernsey. It is, in fact, a South African plant. In 1820 it was renamed Nerine sarniensis - from Guernsey - by astute English botanist William Herbert (1778-1947). Incidentally, Cornut remarks that their lack of aroma is compensated by the very beauty of the colors of the flower.

Here in the Amsterdam Hortus it's Autumn and one of the few bright plants to be seen. In the background Euryops, also from South Africa.

Done