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hibiscus

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hibiscus

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The Hibiscus rosa-sinensis flowering in cultivation in Israel. With their large, showy flowers, several hibiscus species are widely cultivated as ornamentals, but others are grown for their fibre and their edible pods (okra) and fruit.

Any of a group of plants belonging to the mallow family. Hibiscuses range from large herbaceous plants to trees. Popular as ornamental plants because of their brilliantly coloured, red to white, bell-shaped flowers, they include H. syriacus and H. rosa-sinensis of Asia and the rose mallow (H. palustris) of North America. (Genus Hibiscus, family Malvaceae.)

Some tropical species provide fruit and timber: H. tiliaceus supplies timber and fibrous bark to South Pacific islanders and H. sabdariffa is cultivated in the West Indies and elsewhere for its fruit.



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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
Hair of cloud o'er face of flower, Nodding plumes where she alights, In the white hibiscus bower She lingers through the soft spring nights -- Nights too short, though wearing late Till the mimosa days are born.
A Lute of Jade by Cranmer-Byng, L. View in context
She pretended that she was making a flower-bed, and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth, all the time growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she would say and the names she would call Saidie when she returned.
The Secret Garden by Burnett, Frances Hodgson View in context
A straight, dry, and partly decayed stick of the Hibiscus, about six feet in length, and half as many inches in diameter, with a small, bit of wood not more than a foot long, and scarcely an inch wide, is as invariably to be met with in every house in Typee as a box of lucifer matches in the corner of a kitchen cupboard at home.
Typee by Melville, Herman View in context
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