The Yellow Bird of Paradise flower - Strelitzia reginae 'Mandela's Gold', in Kirstenbosch Garden in Cape Town, South Africa

---

The Yellow Bird of Paradise - Strelitzia reginae 'Mandela's Gold' - is a rare, yellow form of the famous orange Bird of Paradise. This spectacular cultivar has flaring, yellow sepals and blue petals reminiscent of a crested tropical bird. The yellow form of the Reginae has been around for many years cropping up in Europe, Australia, West coast of the USA, Japan and several places in Africa and The National Botanical Gardens at Kirstenbosh. As they have only produced isolated flowers among the orange, cross pollination happened all the time, and the seeds would only produce the orange form. It took 20 years by John Winter at Kirstenbosch to produce and build up enough stock to sell on the open market and they were called "Kirstenbosh Gold". After several years it was renamed Mandela Gold after Nelson Mandela.

---

Size: 4576px × 3056px
Location: Kirstenbosch Gardens, Cape Town, South Africa
Photo credit: © Derek Gale / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: africa, background, bird, blue, botanical, breeder, cape, dark, flora, floral, flower, gardens, gold, john, kingdom, kirstenbosch, mandela, national, nelson, paradise, petals, plant, reginae, sepals, south, strelitzia, town, tropical, vignette, winter, yellow