Sandersonia aurantiaca flowers

The Christmas bells or geelklokkie in Afrikaans is a popular grassland plant that used to be common from the Eastern Cape to southern Mpumalanga.

Habitat loss and flower picking has reduced it to a rare plant. Sandersonia aurantiaca is rarely cultivated, but eagerly taken for cut flowers.

The Zulus used the rootstock as an aphrodisiac in olden times (www.plantzafrica.com).