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Hibiscus

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hibiscus: see mallow mallow, common name for members of the Malvaceae, a family of herbs and shrubs distributed over most of the world and especially abundant in the American tropics. Tropical species sometimes grow as small trees.
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hibiscus

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China rose (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis)
(credit: Sven Samelius)
Any of about 250 species of shrubs, trees, and herbaceous plants that make up the genus Hibiscus, in the mallow family, native to warm temperate and tropical regions. Several are cultivated as ornamentals for their showy flowers. The tropical Chinese hibiscus, or China rose (H. rosa-sinensis), has large, somewhat bell-shaped reddish blossoms. The East African hibiscus (H. schizopetalus), a drooping shrub, is often grown in hanging baskets indoors. Other members of the genus include okra, rose of Sharon, and many flowering plants known by the common name mallow.


hibiscus
any plant of the chiefly tropical and subtropical malvaceous genus Hibiscus, esp H. rosa-sinensis, cultivated for its large brightly coloured flowers

hibiscus
symbol of beauty. [Flower Symbolism: Flora Symbolica, 174]
See : Beauty

hibiscus
of Malaysia. [Flower Symbolism: WB, 7: 264]

hibiscus
of Hawaii. [Flower Symbolism: Golenpaul, 629]

Hibiscus 

a plant genus of the family Malvaceae (mallow family), consisting of evergreen or deciduous trees and shrubs and of perennial and annual grasses. There are about 250 species distributed primarily in tropical regions. They are less common in temperate regions. The leaves are mostly palmatilobate, and the flowers are usually large and brightly colored.

Many species of Hibiscus are ornamentals; they are cultivated in greenhouses, indoors, and on open ground. Of the woody species, the best known varieties are the China rose, or the Chinese hibiscus (H. rosa-sinensis), a long-flowering house plant, and the rose of Sharon (H. syriacus), which is cultivated extensively in the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Middle Asia. Of the herbaceous species, the best known are H, × hybridus, a perennial polyhybrid with large flowers, and the flower-of-an-hour (H. trionum), an annual plant with yellow flowers that is found in the southern USSR as a weed. Kenaf (H. cannabinus) is of great economic importance.

REFERENCES

Derev’ia i kustarniki SSSR, vol. 4. Moscow-Leningrad, 1958.
Rusanov, F. N. Gibridnye gibiskusy. Tashkent, 1965.

O. M. POLETIKO



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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.
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.
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.
 
 
 
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