The young bird-of-paradise is a single fan-shaped rank of leaves. As the plant grows, it clumps until it consists of numerous 'fans'. Even out of flower, the plant is dramatic in the landscape.

The bird-of-paradise blooms as an inflorescence; the scape arises from the rank of leaves. The top of the scape terminates in a folded spathe held horizontally—the "beak of the bird". Each flower has six colorful tepals, three orange and three blue. The flowers emerge one at a time from the spathe like a crest of feathers. Two of the blue tepals are shaped unevenly. Together they form a 'dart' that surrounds the pollen-bearing stamens and serve as a nectary. The white tip of the dart is the stigma.

Birds-of-paradise set seeds poorly, or not at all, if pollinated with their own pollen. Even two flowers on separate scapes of the same plant will not serve to pollinate each other. Seed is set best when the flowers are cross-pollinated from another bird-of-paradise. But the dart that hides the stamens foils most potential pollinators.

The 'bird' is pollinated by a bird—a sunbird which lands on the spathe to drink nectar. As the bird parts the tepals of the dart, pollen is dusted onto the sunbird's breast and feet. The bird carries the pollen to another flower on another scape where the bird brushes against the tip of the dart and pollinates the flower.

(Compiled from: "Strelitzia", Hortus Third, Staff of the L.H. Bailey Hortorium, New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976; "Bird-of-Paradise Flower", Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2004; Contemporary Plant Systematics, Dennis W. Woodland, Prentice Hall, 1991; "Strelitzia", A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, Christopher Brickell and Judith D. Zuk, ed., American Horticultural Society, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 1996)