The "stalked bulbine", Bulbine frutescens, is a fast growing, succulent, evergreen perennial groundcover, with linear green leaves similar to onion leaf blades in opposite rows and clasping the stems at the base. It forms spreading clumps with greyish stems often bearing adventitious roots. The small 6-petaled yellow star shaped flowers with fluffy yellow stamens are carried on an upright, spreading raceme during spring (or occasionally at other times). The petals are either yellow or sometimes orange, which combines attractively with the fluffy yellow stamens to give a bi-coloured look. The yellow-flowered form is most common, but there are at least two different shades of apricot in cultivation, one of which is known as 'Hallmark'.
Stems: Shrubby erect to prostrate, winding, woody, branched 6-8 mm in diameter, that roots as it touches the ground allowing the plant to cover an area of 60-90 cm in diameter, branched, with the lower leaves 12-25 mm apart, the upper crowded.
Leaves: Long, thin, succulent 8–12, distichous, subterete, bright green to green-grey, very variable in length (usually 15-25 cm long) in the cultivated plant, 6 mm in diameter, flat in the lower part of the face, turgid in the upper part, semicircular on the back.
Inflorescence: Peduncle simple held 30-90 cm above the foliage. raceme 15-30 cm long, an 2,5 cm in diameter; lower pedicels 12 mm long very much incurved, bracts small, deltoid-cuspidate, fimbriate at the enlarged base.
Flowers: Perianth bright yellow or sometime orange, 8 mm long. Will notice the anthers are fringed in yellow, looking like small caterpillars inside the petals. Flowers open (and close) progressively from the bottom of the spike upwards.
Blooming season: Spring through summer, occasionally in other period of year depending on growing conditions. The long flowering stalk opens slowly, with a few star-shaped flowers at first, then more and more as the season continues.
Fruit (capsule): Globose, the size of a pea.
Seeds: 3–4 in a cell. Black dispersed by wind.
