Ennealophus is a genus from South America in the Iridaceae family, Tigridieae tribe, that includes about 5 species native to the Andes of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Bulbs usually have brown to black papery tunics. Leaves are lanceolate to linear and pleated and the rounded stems are usually branched. The blue to violet flowers with white markings on the outer tepals are radially symmetric with united filaments that form a bottle shaped column and anthers appressed to the style branches. The flowers only last for part of a day. This genus is related to Cardenanthus, Cypella, Eleutherine and Mastigostyla. Species grow on humid slopes near forests.
Ennealophus euryandrus (syn. Herbertia euryandra, Alophia euryandra) is native to Argentina. It blooms in summer. The first photo by Alessandro Marinello. The rest of the photos are from Mary Sue Ittner. She started some from seed several times, but thought she had never been successful. One year an unknown plant came up in a Eucomis pot and flowered. She is not sure how it got there; perhaps she added the soil from one of those seed pots and it grew in conditions it liked (dryish in winter, watered in summer).
For Martin Bohnet, who obtained this species as E. fimbriatus in trade, this is easy from seed and often flowers in the first year.
Ennealophus fimbriatus is native to Argentina where it is found in the provinces of Salta and Jujuy where it grows in rain forest.
Ennealophus foliosus is the most common species and is found in Ecuador and Peru.