Plate 186.
Reading edition
STRELITZIA Reginae. Cape Province. Scitamineae. Tribe Museae. Strelitzia, Ait. in Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. iii. p. 656.
Strelitzia Reginae, Banks in Ait. Hort. Kew. ed. 1, i. 285, t. 2; Fl. Cap. vol. v. sect. iii. p. 316.
In 1792 this plant was figured in the Botanical Magazine, (Plate 119), but had previously been figured by Sir Joseph Banks. Strelitzia Reginae, which was introduced into the Royal Gardens at Kew in 1773, excited a considerable amount of interest when it flowered. In the number of the Botanical Magazine quoted above a double Plate was devoted to the illustration of the flowers so as to give “readers an opportunity of seeing a coloured representation of one of the most scarce and magnificent plants introduced into this country.” That the plant is a particularly handsome one there can be no doubt and it has been appropriately named the “Bird-of-paradise flower”; the Afrikaans name is “Gele piesang.” The species is native of the south-eastern and eastern districts of the Cape Province.
The specimen illustrated on the accompanying Plate was grown at the Division of Botany, Pretoria.
The following description is taken mainly from the Flora Capensis.
Description:—Stemless; leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute, cuneate at the base, up to 0·5 m. long and 10 cm. wide, entire, undulate, especially in the lower part, quite glabrous, bright green above, glaucescent beneath; petiole up to 1·25 m. long; peduncle as long as the petiole. Bracts tubular, oblique and acute at the mouth, uppermost one cymbiform, acuminate, up to 20 cm. long, green, edged with purple. Sepals lanceolate, 7 to 10 cm. long, orange-yellow. Petals dark blue, blade of the lower two 5 cm. long, with a rounded basal auricle; claw 2·5 cm. long; upper petal ovate, 2·5 cm. long. Stamens reaching to the top of the longer petals; anthers narrowly linear, twice as long as the filaments; style exserted, with 3 linear branches 2·5 cm. long. Fruit a capsule; seeds covered with reddish woolly hairs. (National Herb., Pretoria, No. 2915.)
Plate 186.—Fig. 1, plant much reduced; Fig. 2, median longitudinal section of a flower.
F.P.S.A., 1925.
