Photo: Stan Shebs, CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
Snake Flower (Burn Jelly Plant)
Bulbine frutescens
Also known as Burn Jelly Plant, Cat's Tail, Rankalwyn, Stalked Bulbine, Orange Bulbine
Key benefits
✦Traditional uses
✦Long before it appeared in ornamental gardens abroad, Bulbine frutescens was a household standby across South Africa, where its gel-filled leaves earned it the plain, practical name burn jelly plant. Families kept a clump growing near the kitchen door specifically so that anyone scalded by a pot or nicked by a knife could snap off a leaf and treat the spot on the spot. Traditional healers and rural households alike reached for the fresh sap for insect bites, minor rashes, and sunburn as well, treating it as a everyday first-aid plant rather than a medicine cabinet ingredient. Its resemblance to aloe vera in both look and use made it a natural, low-effort companion to the more famous succulent.
How to grow & use it
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- ✦Aloe vera
- ✦Calendula
- ✦Plantain
“For the kitchen burn, the bee sting, the scraped elbow, snap a leaf and let the garden hand you the bandage.”
In South African households, Bulbine frutescens has long sat on the kitchen windowsill the way a bottle of aftershave might sit on a shelf elsewhere, close at hand for the moment a hot pan or a stray spark meets skin. Snap a leaf and the clear, slightly sticky sap runs out almost exactly like aloe vera, which is why it earned the common name burn jelly plant long before it ever reached a garden catalog.
Traditionally used only on unbroken skin for minor burns and irritations, not taken internally. Patch test before use, keep it away from eyes and deep wounds, and keep pets from nibbling the leaves.