Strelitzia juncea, the crane flower, narrow-leaved bird of paradise or rush-leaved strelitzia, is a striking, long-lived perennial endemic to a small area of the Eastern Cape in the vicinity of Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage, Patensie and Humansdorp. S. juncea is one of five species in this mainly South African genus, the others being S. reginae, the bird of paradise or crane flower from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, S. alba, the white bird of paradise from the southern Cape, S. caudata, the mountain strelitzia from Swaziland, the northern provinces of South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and S. nicolai, the giant bird of paradise or wild banana from the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Apart from Strelitzia, there are two other members of the family Strelitziaceae, the spectacular traveller’s tree…
