Whence
Bird-of-paradise flower (Strelitzia)
Plant

Where does Bird-of-paradise flower (Strelitzia) come from?

The bird-of-paradise flower comes from the eastern coast of South Africa, between the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Its orange and blue blooms, rising from a sheath shaped like a bird's head, have made it one of the most popular garden and pot plants in the world.

Wild on South Africa's coast

Strelitzia reginae grows wild only in South Africa, along the eastern coast from Humansdorp to northern KwaZulu-Natal, in coastal bush and thicket and along riverbanks. In South Africa it is called the crane flower, or isigude in Nguni languages. Each flower stalk ends in a hard, beak-like sheath, the spathe, from which four to six flowers emerge one after another, each with three orange sepals and three blue or purple petals.

A perch for birds

The flower seems built for birds. The spathe makes a sturdy perch, and two of the blue petals are joined into an arrow-shaped nectary. The usual account is that when a sunbird sits to drink the nectar, the third petal opens to release the anther and dust its feet with pollen, and the genus is believed to be the only one pollinated by birds' feet. South Africa's National Biodiversity Institute is more careful: sunbird pollination has still to be proven, and sunbirds have been seen taking nectar while bypassing the pollen.

Why people say Hawaii

Its showy look seems made for a tropical island, but the plant is South African. It was introduced to Britain in 1773, when it was grown at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Joseph Banks named the genus Strelitzia after Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, who came from the house of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and described this species, reginae, 'of the queen', in 1788. Since then it has been planted in sunny, warm places around the world, including the Americas and Australia.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Strelitzia reginae ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Strelitzia ↗ · pza.sanbi.org ↗

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