Surprising Blue. Strelitzia nicolai, Natal Wild Banana, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Eduard August von Regel (1815-1892), director of the Imperial Botanical Garden at St Petersburg, Russia, and his colleague Friedrich August Körnicke (1828-1908), keeper of the Herbarium there, had a sharp eye on their collection of trelitzia augusta. When the plants began to flower in 1858, our formal German Botanists lost their usual scientific cool even in their scholarly description. Miightily surprised, they exclaim: 'Wer hätte nun aber geglaubt, das unter den als Str(elitzia) augusta in den Gärten verbreiteten Pflanzen, zwei ganz verschiedene Arten enthalten seien?' (Who would have thought that two different plants in the garden go under the same name Strelitzia augusta!). They wax eloquent on their find of an unknown Strelitzia and with almost embarrassing unction name it for the Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaievich (1831-1891), Czar Nicholas I's third son, 'grand protector' of the Gardening Society of St Petersburg.
Strelitzia nicolai must have come undetected in a shipment of plants from southern Africa. In 1889 Curtis's Botanical Magazine notes that it is still unknown from where in southern Africa it hails. Soon afterwards it was determined to grow in eastern regions of southern Africa all the way up through KwaZulu-Natal to Mozambique.
This photo is of a flower in the Tropical Greenhouse of the Hortus in Amsterdam (see inset).
Surprising Blue. Strelitzia nicolai, Natal Wild Banana, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Eduard August von Regel (1815-1892), director of the Imperial Botanical Garden at St Petersburg, Russia, and his colleague Friedrich August Körnicke (1828-1908), keeper of the Herbarium there, had a sharp eye on their collection of trelitzia augusta. When the plants began to flower in 1858, our formal German Botanists lost their usual scientific cool even in their scholarly description. Miightily surprised, they exclaim: 'Wer hätte nun aber geglaubt, das unter den als Str(elitzia) augusta in den Gärten verbreiteten Pflanzen, zwei ganz verschiedene Arten enthalten seien?' (Who would have thought that two different plants in the garden go under the same name Strelitzia augusta!). They wax eloquent on their find of an unknown Strelitzia and with almost embarrassing unction name it for the Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaievich (1831-1891), Czar Nicholas I's third son, 'grand protector' of the Gardening Society of St Petersburg.
Strelitzia nicolai must have come undetected in a shipment of plants from southern Africa. In 1889 Curtis's Botanical Magazine notes that it is still unknown from where in southern Africa it hails. Soon afterwards it was determined to grow in eastern regions of southern Africa all the way up through KwaZulu-Natal to Mozambique.
This photo is of a flower in the Tropical Greenhouse of the Hortus in Amsterdam (see inset).