Flora of New Zealand Series

Fairy Bells

Large evergreen clumps. Corm large, globose, tunic fibres splitting into long bristles at top. Stems 1-2 m high, arching, slender, terete. Leaves 45-90 × c. 1 cm, ± stiff, dull olive-green. Panicle with drooping filiform branches to 15 cm long; spathe-valves papery, ± 2 cm long, whitish, speckled with small brown lines. Flowers pinkish-purple, 3-3.5 cm long, 3-4 cm diam., 5-7 alternate, ± 1 cm apart towards extremities of branches. Capsule enclosed in persistent spathe-valves, ± 3.5 mm long Seeds few.

N. Bay of Plenty - Te Puke; Wellington - Makino, Waiohine River near Greytown. S. Canterbury - Ladbrooks. Rare and local on roadsides and in waste places.

(S. Africa)

First record: Healy 1958: 536.

First collection: "Makino near Feilding, roadside, A. J. Healy, 27.12.1941, establishing" (CHR 35492): "colonies persistent and increasing in 1953."

FL. 12-1.

Healy (Nat. Hist. Canty 1968, 291) recorded the only collection from Canterbury under the name D. pulcherrimum Baker. This sp. principally differs from D. pendulum in the larger more deeply coloured flowers, and it seemed best to treat all adventive plants under the older name D. pendulum.