(Camera Canon EOS 550D - Sheffield, Ballito, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa)
The Natal Wild Banana (Strelitzia nicolai) grows up to 12m high and 4m wide. It is an evergreen tree with multi-stems that form dense clumps.
Taken in my garden, Sheffield, Ballito, South Africa
The stem is woody and smooth in texture. It is light to dark grey and marked with old leaf scars. Attached to the stem by long, thick leaf stalks are the enormous, opposite leaves that are shiny and grey-green, with blades capable of reaching up to 2m in length. These tear in the wind and come to resemble giant feathers.
Camera Canon EOS 550D - Sheffield, Ballito, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa
The inflorescence is composed of a dark blue bract, white sepals and a bluish-purple "tongue". The entire flower can be as much as 18 cm (7.1 in) high by 45 cm (18 in) long and is typically held just above the point where the leaf fan emerges from the stem. Flowers are followed by triangular seed capsules.
Pic from Wikipedia
The seeds are black in colour, with a tuft of a bright orange woolly aril on the lobe. They are produced mostly in autumn and winter, March to July. The easiest way to propagate this tree is from root suckers, but it will also grow from seed.
Restricted to evergreen coastal forest and thicket of eastern South Africa from the Great Fish River northwards to Richards Bay. It is also considered native to Mozambique, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and is reportedly naturalized in eastern Mexico.
Strelitzia Nicolai is among the few plants which have been verified to contain the pigment bilirubin, which is usually found in animals.