ROSE-OF-SHARON
File Size: 62 KB
 
Hibiscus syriacus  L.
Riley County, Kansas
Height: Perennial shrub to 13 feet tall
Family: Malvaceae – Mallow Family
Flowering Period:   June, July, August
Trunks: Erect
Twigs: Twigs glabrous, line of minute hairs running length of internode.
Leaves: Stipules linear to filiform, .1 to .5 inch; petiole ?1/4 to /12 blade; blade rhombic-ovate, 1.4 to 3.8 inches long, 1 to 3.4 inches wide, usually 3-lobed, base wedge-shaped or rounded, margins coarsely crenate-serrate, apex acute to short-acuminate, surfaces nearly glabrous.
Flowers: Solitary flowers or few-flowered clusters in axils of upper leaves. Pedicels to .6 inch densely and minutely stellate-hairy, involucral bracts 7 or 8, linear or narrowly oblanceolate, .3 to .9 inch, unequal in length, stellate-hairy.Horizontal or ascending, sometimes double-flowered; calyx broadly bell-shaped, .6 to .8 inch, lobed for half length, lobes triangular, tips acute or short-acuminate, densely and minutely stellate-hairy; corolla broadly funnel-shaped,; petals 5 pink, lavender, blue, or white, base usually dark red, obovate, 1.4 to 3 inches long, 1 to 2.2 inches wide, margins entire or wavy, occasionally undulate; staminal column white, 1 to 1.4 inch long, bearing many anthers along sides, forming tube around pistil; style white, .12 to .3 inch long, 5-branched from or beyond orifice of staminal column.
Fruit: Capsule, greenish tan, ovoid, .6 to 1 inch, apex apiculate, densely, and minutely stellate-hairy. Seeds reddish brown, reniform-ovoid, .16 to .2 inch, flattened laterally, glabrous laterally, long-hairy dorsally, hairs straight, reddish orange.
Habitat: Old homesteads, streambanks, disturbed sites.
Distribution: Documented spreading from cultivation in Douglas and Neosho Counties.
Origin: Introduced
Comments: Widely planted as an ornamental. It sometimes persists or escapes.

Rose-of-Sharon flower
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Riley County, Kansas
Rose-of-Sharon leaf
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Riley County, Kansas
Rose-of-Sharon leaves
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Riley County, Kansas
Rose-of-Sharon bark
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Riley County, Kansas
Rose-of-Sharon twig
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Riley County, Kansas
Rose-of-Sharon seeds
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Riley County, Kansas
Rose-of-Sharon fruit
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Riley County, Kansas
Rose-of-Sharon leaf
75 KB
Riley County, Kansas