Upoffmebum

By Upoffmebum

Sneaky Strelitsia

Turn my back on the Strelitsia plant for a lousy two days, and what happens? It morphs from a smooth sea-green stem with a pointy tip to a full-blown flower - complete with bright purple tongue and orange bunny-ear petals.
They're weird, they're wonderful, they're brilliantly colourful, and turns out they're a bit sneaky too.
Note to self (for the nth time): One of these days, I'm going to set up my camera on a tripod next to a Strelitsia stem that's preparing to open up, set it to time-lapse for 24 hours or so, and capture the whole magical flowering process.
It must look a little like the elegant ballet those hardtop convertibles perform when they automatically open their bootlid backwards, unhook the roof, concertina it up and stow it inside, and close the lid again. Only in slow motion.
Can't think of another flower that insists on each of its component parts being a completely different but equally dazzling colour in its own right, one pushed up against the other, and being a completely different shape and texture.
All in all, it's a shamelessly over-the-top colour bomb of a flower that I love having in the garden. If only it wouldn't slip in its flowering when I'm not looking.

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