DESCRIPTION:--Branches tomentellous to tomentose above. _Leaves_ 4 to 11 cm. long, 1·2 to 3·2 cm. broad, lanceolate or lanceolate-elliptic, subobtuse, narrowing at the base, distinctly veined, glabrous or the youngest leaves sometimes loosely pilose. _Head_ sessile, 7 to 8 cm. long, about 5 cm. in diam. _Involucral-bracts_ 11-12-seriate; outer ovate, obtuse, silky on the back, green, ciliate; inner oblong or spathulate-oblong, whitish pubescent to tomentose, fringed with white cilia, shorter than the styles; perianth-sheath 4 cm. long, slender and thin above the middle, gradually dilated and 5-nerved below, not keeled, the upper half at length coiled up, loosely hairy; lip 1·5 cm. long, tridentate, glabrous, with a dense tuft of hairs at the apex; lateral teeth 2 mm. long; median tooth 1·5 mm. long; stamens all fertile; filaments 1 mm. long, channelled down the middle; anthers linear, 6 mm. long; apical glands 0·5 mm. long, ovate, subacuminate, subacute, keeled on the inner face; ovary covered with a tuft of long brown hairs; style 5 cm. long, almost straight, keeled on one side, compressed above the ovary, then more or less terete, glabrous; stigma 6 mm. long, furrowed, subcapitate at the apex, abruptly and obliquely passing into the much stouter style. (National Herb., Pretoria, No. 2918.) PLATE 185.--Fig. 1, single flower; Fig. 2, receptacle. F.P.S.A., 1925. [Illustration: 186.] PLATE 186. 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_.