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Birds of Paradise.

"It’s like a bird, yes — a crane — yet what’s so moving is its quality of high-chinned hesitancy, as if it’s lost but is too shy to ask for directions.

It’s all the more touching to learn that the bird of paradise is lost... it is thousands upon thousands of miles from its home in KwaZulu-Natal. In the last two centuries, we have renamed it bird of paradise, idolized it and reviled it, made it the flower of royals, the emblem of star-crossed love, the Los Angeles city flower and finally, the floral retort to Florida’s plastic pink flamingos. The only thing we have failed to do is consider the plant on its own merits.”

Los Angeles Times