On the beauty of hibiscus flowersWritten by Admin I had my first
introduction to plants in the Hibiscus genus when I was a boy.
Rose-of-Sharon was a common dooryard shrub in the piedmont
region of Virginia where I grew up, just as it is here in
Western North Carolina. In mid-summer, my cousins and I would
amuse ourselves by trapping large bumblebees in the flowers. No
problem: just wait for a bee to penetrate the back part of the
blossom and then seal the petals shut with your fingertips. We
must not have had a lot amusement options back then, since we
spent a lot of our time harassing bumblebees in this manner.
Even then, I noticed the peculiar structure of the rose-of-
Sharon blossoms, but it wasn’t until later on that I bothered to
find out more about them and the other members of the Hibiscus
genus, which belong to the mallow family of plants. All mallows
display five petals, within which the male stamen parts are
united to form a long tube (or “staminal column”) that surrounds
the female parts. Nectar is