The fruiting and leafing phases can occasionally overlap. As with most plants the foliage grows while a sufficient supply of water is present. In the Cape this happens to be in the cool winter. The leaves are generally light grey-green in color and linear in shape. Many of the species have gently twisted leaves which spiral out of the sheathed neck of the bulb giving the plant an exotic, striking appearance.
Some species even have hairs covering the leaves.
These adaptive traits, which make the plants so popular, are thought to help protect the plant form the sun and reduce their water loss from evaporation. As the rainy season comes to and end and the temperatures rise, the foliage dies back to the sheathed neck and the bulbs begin to go dormant. Once it is hot and dry, the bulbs enter their flowering phase. Due to the large amount of energy it takes, each bulb can only produce a single short lived flower in any one year. The sheathing neck left over from the dried leaves helps protect the delicate white or pink flower from the hot sun baked soil.