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.

It grows in dense and fairly extensive tufts from Knysna to the Amatolas 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.

[2][6] The (Southern) Sotho people of the Kingdom of Lesotho use a decoction of the corm of Dierama pendulum as an enema with strongly purgative properties.