Plantidote of the Day 2012-06-04

Strelitzia reginae and Strelitzia nicolai

Common and giant, or white, birds of paradise

A tale of two birds of paradise, or BoPs, if you will. The first is the ordinary, run-of-the-mill, official LA City Flower, shown above. The second is the super-sized version, fondly known as Big Bird around here, which apparently traded in the brilliant (or what some might call garish) color scheme for a more subdued palette with a lot more height (see below).

Apologies for the crummy image quality on Big Bird -- there's a much better one here. The top of the plant, where you can sort of see the black and white "birds," is at least 20 feet off the ground, so it's much harder to shoot than the shorty version, which is only about three feet tall.

For years, I thought Big Bird was a banana tree. Then one day, my son, who was about 7 or 8, asked where the bananas were. Anyway, it took about ten minutes to discover that BoPs come in two sizes, and that my kid is smarter than me. (Actually, the second part was already pretty well established.) So, yes, we have no bananas. But we've got BoPs, big and small, for days!

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