Strelitzia alba is a tree of the Bird of Paradise family and is endemic to the Garden Route along the southernmost coastal regions of the Eastern and Western Cape in South Africa. The Swedish botanist Thunberg, who in 1792 described and published it in Nov. Gen. Pl.: 113 as Strelitzia augusta, first found it in the neighbourhood of the Piesang River at Plettenberg Bay - 'piesang' being Afrikaans for 'banana'. Francis Masson, who was then the Botanical Collector for Kew, introduced it to Europe in 1791. This is one of three arborescent Strelitzias, the other two being Strelitzia caudata and Strelitzia nicolai.