Friday, May 25, 2018

Confederate rose


species: Hibiscus mutabilis
common name: Confederate rose
family: Malvaceae
where & when encountered: Covington, LA - 2012

I had never encountered anything quite like this: a flower that starts the day white, then gradually turns pink, and by the end of the day is red. It sounds like science fiction, but in the Deep South it is a fact of life. There are chemical explanations for this phenomenon that are too complex for my little brain to summarize here.

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