Has anyone seen a Bird of Paradise crown split into two growing points?
Hey everyone,
I’m curious whether anyone has seen this happen with a Bird of Paradise before.
I bought this Bird of Paradise as a single-stem plant around 7 years ago. In 2022, I noticed a strange leaf emerging from the centre of the plant and took a photo (Photo 1). It turned out to be what looked like two leaves emerging from the same growing point. They were slightly deformed, but the plant was otherwise healthy.
After that, the plant appeared to develop two separate growing points. Over the next couple of years, both sides grew almost in sync, producing leaves within a week or two of each other.
By 2024 (Photo 2), it was starting to look like two separate plants. You can also see the first flower spike in that photo. That year, only one side flowered.
This year (February 2026), both sides produced a flower spike, so I had two flowers, one from each crown (Photo 3).
The final photos are from today (July 2026). As you can see, it now looks like two plants sharing the same base.
When I repotted it recently, the root system appeared to be one solid mass rather than a parent plant with a separate pup attached.
Has anyone else seen a Strelitzia do this? Most information I can find describes them forming clumps by producing offsets/pups from the rhizome, but this seems more like the original crown split into two growing points.
I’d be interested to hear if anyone has experienced something similar or knows whether there’s a name for this type of growth.