Friday, February 22, 2013

Bird of Paradise or Crane Flower? Strelitzia

A common name of the genus Strelitzia is bird of paradise flower, because of a supposed resemblance of its flowers to the bird of paradise but we must admit this one's a stretch so we'll go with what in South Africa is commonly known as a crane flower! What do you think? Crane? Or Bird of Paradise?  A third option could be that 'paradise' is fictional so that it is a 'bird' of a fictional place.
      Strelitzia is a genus of five species of perennial plants, native to South Africa. It belongs to the plant family Strelitziaceae. The genus is named after the duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, birthplace of Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom.
      The species S. nicolai is the largest in the genus, reaching 10 m tall, with stately white and blue flowers; the other species typically reach 2 to 3.5 m tall, except S. caudata which is a tree of a typically smaller size than S. nicolai. The leaves are large, 30–200 cm long and 10–80 cm broad, similar to a banana leaf in appearance but with a longer petiole, and arranged strictly in two ranks to form a fan-like crown of evergreen foliage. The flowers are produced in a horizontal inflorescence emerging from a stout spathe. They are pollinated by sunbirds, which use the spathe as a perch when visiting the flowers; the weight of the bird on the spathe opens it to release the pollen onto the bird's feet, which is then deposited on the next flower it visits. Src : Wikipedia
Strelitzia

Crane
Bird of Paradise

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