The river bells, rivierklokkies in Afrikaans, is a fast-growing evergreen, perennial. It produces erect panicles of drooping salmon or sometimes yellow trumpet flowers in summer and autumn. The leaves are oval with acute angled tips, opposite, soft and dark green. The plant is grown from seed or cuttings. The fruit is a green, ovoid capsule.

Phygelius aequalis occurs in nature along rocky streambanks and in open woodland in the high altitude bushy valleys and water-courses of the Drakensberg in the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo as well as in Swaziland. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (www.plantzafrica.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).