1319.000 Strelitzia Banks

Perennial herbs, often tree-like with woody trunks or stems absent, proliferating around base and clump-forming. Leaves 2-ranked, large; lamina simple, blue-green, leathery. Inflorescence with 1 or various reddish-brown or claret-coloured boat-shaped spathaceous bracts including the flowers; flowers opening 1 at a time. Flowers showy; tepals 6; outer 3 free, white or orange; inner 3 fused into an arrow-shaped keel that encloses stamens and style. Fruit a capsule, woody, 3-valved. Seeds globose, loculicidal, hard; aril bright orange, hair-like.

Derivation of name: for Charlotte (Sophia Charlotte) of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818), wife of King George III, patroness of the arts and of Kew Gardens.

Worldwide: 5 species, in Zimbabwe and eastern southern Africa.

Zimbabwe: 2 taxa.