Gold yellow stars of this beautiful groundcover/ bulb brighten the spring and summer grasslands around the country and is a hardy and versatile plant for summer rainfall gardens. Usually deciduous, new leaves sprout from a papery, hairy corm and remain until early to mid-winter. These are narrow, with a marked mid-rib, and up to 40 cm long, spreading up and out, coming to rest back on the ground. Leaves are covered with tiny hairs that help to reduce water loss on hot days. Bright yellow star-shaped flowers follow the leaves in spring, with 5 – 13 flowers carried on 5 – 6 thin flower stems. Flowers don’t all open at once, opening sequentially from the bottom-up to the apex, with between 1 and 3 open at a time. They shine brightly for the morning, closing up around midday, with a new batch ready to open the following day. Seeds are tiny smooth, glossy, black nuggets; in the wild, they germinate best after a grassland fire has moved through. This plant is under threat with urban sprawl clearing too many adjacent grasslands. It is also one of the most popular medicinal plants and many wild populations have been dangerously thinned due to the unsustainable collection.