Agapanthus campanulatus

Agapanthus campanulatus, commonly called the bell agapanthus or in Afrikaans the bloulelie (blue lily), is a clump-forming, deciduous perennial reaching about 70 cm in height when flowering.

The leaves grow every spring from the plant's short, thick rhizome. Leaf colour is greyish green and purplish at the base. They narrow to the stem-like base. 

The species distribution is in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and the provinces north of the Vaal River.

Common in Drakensberg grassland where the photo was taken, the plants grow in spring and summer, remaining dormant during the cold and dry winters. Both the recognised subspecies, viz. subsp. campanulatus and subsp. patens have habitat populations deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; www.plantzafrica.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).