Bulbous geophyte up to 30cm. Leaf dry at flowering, solitary, erect, cylindrical; flowers mostly white with dark keels, crowded in slender racemes, tepal margins downturned; open during the morning.

Greek: drimus, acrid or pungent: referring to all parts of plant being poisonous or an irritant.

After: Johann F. Drege (1794-1881), German plant collector, arrived in the Cape in 1826; one of the most significant plant collectors in South Africa.