''Dierama pendulum'', commonly known as fairy bell, hair bell and wedding bell, is a species of Iridaceae endemic to the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

in South Africa and first collected in 1772 by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Peter Thunberg Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a Swedish naturalist and an "apostle" of Carl Linnaeus. After studying under Linnaeus at Uppsala Un ...

near Essenbos on the Kromme River or Kromrivier which flows down the Langkloof. In 1845 the genus ''Dierama'' was established by Karl Koch (1809-1879) based on this specimen. Before that the plant had been placed in various genera including ''

Ixia ''Ixia'' is a genus of cormous plants native to South Africa from the family Iridaceae. Some of them are known as the corn lily. Some distinctive traits include sword-like leaves and long wiry stems with star-shaped flowers. It usually prefers w ...

'', '' Sparaxis'' and '' Watsonia''. The species name has been misapplied to ''D. inyangense'', ''D. densiflorum'' and to ''D. plowesii''. 'Dierama' is Greek for 'funnel' and describes the flower's shape, while 'pendulum' is the Latin word for hanging suspended. The plant is some 2 metres tall with extremely slender and wiry stems, dividing into hair-like branches, flexing gracefully under the weight of the flowers, and nodding readily in the lightest of breezes. As do all species in the genus, it has a large flattened corm covered in layers of tunics made up of dry fibres. A new corm is formed every growing season, the old defunct corms remaining intact for many years, stacked one above the other. It grows in dense and fairly extensive tufts from Knysna to the

Amatola Amatola, Amatole or Amathole are a range of densely forested mountains, situated in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The word ''Amathole'' means ‘calves’ in Xhosa, and Amathole District Municipality, which lies to the south, is named ...

s in the Eastern Cape and, when not in flower, the tall, slender, rigid leaves resemble those of a coarse sedge. The flower colour ranges from pink to pure white, while the tough, rounded capsule contains numerous angular brown seeds.

Medicinal use

The (Southern) Sotho people of the

Kingdom of Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked as an enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest mountains in Southern Africa. It has an area of over and has a populatio ...

use a decoction of the corm of ''Dierama pendulum'' as an enema with strongly purgative properties."Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern and Eastern Africa" 2nd edition,Watt J.M.& Breyer-Brandwijk M.G. pub.E.&S.Livingstone Ltd. 1962 p.504 (under synonym D. pendula Bak.)

Bibliography

*''Dierama: The Hairbells of Africa'' - Olive Mary Hilliard & Brian Laurence Burtt (1991).

References

pendulum Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces Plants described in 1782 Taxa named by John Gilbert Baker Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus the Younger {{Iridaceae-stub