Comments (Meaning / History Only)

Nerina is sometimes used in South Africa as a flower name, as is Nerine. Like some lilies, nerinas grow from bulbs and flower once a year. They are also known as Jersey lilies: this etymology is copied from Wikipedia. A ship with some botanical specimens among its cargo was wrecked in the English Channel, and among the wreckage washed up on the island of Jersey were some bulbs which took root there and flowered; hence the name Jersey lily.The genus name given to it by Herbert in 1820 derives from the Nereids (sea-nymphs) of Greek mythology that protected sailors and their ships. Herbert combined Morison's account of the plant being washed ashore from a shipwreck with Renaissance poetry, alluding to the rescue of Vasco da Gama’s ship by a Nereid in the epic poem of Camões, Os Lusiadas.[40] Although bearing the name "lily" in the vernacular, Nerine is only distantly related to the true lilies (Lilium) of the lily family, Liliaceae, sensu stricto. Instead they are one of many genera placed in the amaryllid lily family, Amaryllidaceae, such as the closely related Amaryllis, and Lycoris. These were once part of the much larger construction of Liliaceae sensu lato. The name "spider lily" is shared by a number of different genera within Amaryllidaceae. For instance, Lycoris aurea may be sold under its earlier synonym, Nerine aurea.[39]
Nerina is also considered the Latinate form of Nereide.
(See: Nereida)

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