Crimsoneyed Rosemallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) Has White to Red Flowers

Summary: Crimsoneyed rosemallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) is a New World native flowering plant with a long blooming period for its large white to red flowers.

Hibiscus moscheutos, Potomac Heritage Trail, Arlington County, northern Virginia: Fritzflohrreynolds, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Crimsoneyed rosemallow (Hibiscus moscheutos), a New World shrubby, flowering perennial with a long period of successive bloomings of large white, pink or red flowers.

Hibiscus moscheutos claims New World homelands in North America. In Canada, Hibiscus moscheutos is native only in the east central province of Ontario. Canada has designed the normally robust perennial as special concern species since April 1987.

In the United States, crimsoneyed rosemallow is native to 30 of the Lower 48 states. Hibiscus moscheutos occurs natively in Atlantic Ocean states from Florida northward through Massachusetts and New York; in Gulf Coast states northward through Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, and, skipping over Arkansas, through Missouri; northwestward through two of the American Southwest’s Four Corners states, New Mexico and Utah.

Preferred habitats revolve around the moisture and sunniness of wetland ecosystems. Hibiscus moscheutos thrives in floodplains and along riverbanks as well as in marshes and swamps.

Hibiscus moscheutos is commonly known as crimsoneyed rosemallow. Other common names include eastern rosemallow, hardy hibiscus, swamp rose-mallow and wild rose mallow.

Hibiscus moscheutos has two to four subspecies. The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), a partnership of North American governmental agencies with international taxonomic experts, agrees with the U.S. Forest Service in identifying Hibiscus moscheutos var. lasiocarpos and Hibiscus moscheutos var. moscheutos as crimsoneyed rosemallow’s two subspecies. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), lists two additional subspecies: incanus and palustris.

Hibiscus moscheutos is especially amenable to hybridizing with three other native hibiscus species of eastern North America: coccineus, laevis and militaris. Hibiscus moscheutos also hybridizes well with swamp rose mallow, which is considered either as a distinct species (Hibiscus palustris) or as a subspecies (Hibiscus moscheutos ssp. palustris).

Crimsoneyed rosemallow’s great variability encourages a steady development of cultivars usually known as dinner plate hibiscuses because of their strikingly oversized flowers. In 2012, the London-based Royal Horticultural Society honored the ‘Southern Belle Group’ cultivar with its Award of Garden Merit (AGM), a mark of quality awarded annually since 1922. The award recognizes plants with reliable performance in gardens.

The perennial’s upright stems arise from a large, persistent, underground woody rootstock, known as a caudex. Large storage roots are attached to the caudex (Latin: “tree stem, tree trunk”).

Stems reach heights of 3 to 8 feet (1 to 2.5 meters). The number of stems emerging from a caudex may range from only a few to many.

Large leaves form alternate arrangements along stems. Broad leaves have lanceolate (Latin: lanceolatus, “lance-like”) or ovate (Latin: ovatus, “egg-shaped”) shapes, with serrated edges. Leaves measures lengths of 3.14 to 8.66 inches (8 to 22 centimeters) and widths of 3.14 to 5.9 inches (8 to 15 centimeters).

Foliage typically has a light or medium green coloring. Yet some cultivars put forth bronze or purple colored leaves. Introduced by Fleming’s Flower Fields in 1997, Hibiscus x moscheutos ‘Kopper King’ presents dramatic leaf colorings of bronze-green in youth and burgundy at maturity.

Individually, flowers are ephemeral, with opening and closing lasting only one or two days. Yet, successively blooming new flowers account for a lengthy blooming period that may extend from May through October.

Large flowers open as five overlapped petals. Petal coloring may be pink, red or white.  Flowers typically feature a red or reddish purple throat, the opening of the calyx tube, which bears sepals and stamens, at the base of the petals. Coloring of each flower’s five sepals ranges from light to yellowish green.

Fruits are globular or egg-shaped capsules. Hard-coated seeds measure diameters of less than 0.11 inches (3 millimeters).

Crimsoneyed rosemallow attests to the beauty of wetland dwelling plants.

closeup of Hibiscus moscheutos foliage and calyces with fruit, or seedpod, split open to reveal seeds, Martin Creek State Park: Michael Gras, M.Ed (mikegras), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Hibiscus moscheutos, Potomac Heritage Trail, Arlington County, northern Virginia: Fritzflohrreynolds, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hibiscus_moscheutos_-_Crimsoneyed_Rosemallow.jpg

closeup of Hibiscus moscheutos foliage and calyces with fruit, or seedpod, split open to reveal seeds, Martin Creek State Park: Michael Gras, M.Ed (mikegras), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikegras/15122268297/

For further information:

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