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Saturday, September 21, 2013

Pretty Flower Identified

The other day I saw two lovely flowers in full bloom in front of one of the permanent resident's homes here in the campground. They stood tall in their clay pots and there were several other pots with the same leaves with only buds evident at the top of their stems.

The leaves looked quite a bit like marijuana leaves - yes, I know what they look like. The flowers were a bright red shade with a white star at their centers and a hibiscus-like stigma.

No one was home so I took a couple of pictures. I wanted to know this plant's name. I tried to identify it but couldn't. This morning I rode by again, in my golf cart, camera again in hand. The lady of the house  was out and was tending to some of her other plantings. I stopped, introduced myself and asked her if she would be able to tell me the name of the ones I pointed to. She said, "Why yes, they are a Texas Dahlia." I thanked her and went home to recheck my research findings. NO! They are not a Texas Dahlia.



Texas was the key word and I searched again and found it.

BUT.....I found out they have several names, one being Texas Star.
Here are the other names for this flower:

Texas Five Star Hibiscus
Swamp Hibiscus
Texas Star
Scarlet Rose Mallow
Scarlet Hibiscus

No wonder I had difficulty, eh?

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1872/#b


2 comments:

  1. A beautiful flower and worth your research!

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  2. You can sure tell it's a hibiscus of some sort with identical stamens. Pretty color too.

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