On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 23:06:43 GMT, Yukinoroh
wrote:

I have bought a plant that I think is a ravenala (ravenala
madagascariensis), but now I have doubts it could be a giant [white] bird
of paradise (strelitzia nicolai). Any ideas on how to distinguish these
two?

I've grown both and very young plants (up to about 3-4 years old) can
be quite difficult to distinguish. However, Ravenala carries its
leaves in a very distinct, single plane and this tends to be obvious
quite early on it's life. Unfortunately, a young Strelitzia nicolai
can do similar, although it is rarely as obvious and the plant tends
to produce new shoots (suckers) quite freely.

By contrast, Ravenala tends to wait for several to many years before
producing offsets. In both plants, the leaf blade is a rather
elongated spoon shape, but in Ravenala, the leaf blade tends to taper
noticeably beyond the mid point. With age, this tapering becomes very
noticeable.

Sorry I can't be more precise, but Strelitzia and Ravenala are very
closely related and are often only truly distinguishable from each
other at the mid-juvenile stage (from 5 years on). Strelitzia nicolai
is easily the most commonly available and unless your plant was
labelled as Ravenala by a reputable nursery, the probability is in
favour of it being Strelitzia.

HTH
Dave Poole
Torquay, Coastal South Devon UK
Winter min -2°C. Summer max 34°C.
Growing season: March - November
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