Field of Science

Friday Fabulous Flower - Rose mallow

During the past two weeks, visits to beaches have been pretty frequent, but that only included three with natural vegetation pretty much intact. In this part of the NE USA, this very gaudy plant, the rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) occupies a zone where the beach vegetation meets more inland vegetation, particularly where it is a bit wet. The rose mallow has typical enough mallow/hibiscus flowers, but they are 6 or more inches in diameter. These herbaceous perennials grow to 5-6 feet under good conditions and several cultivars exist for some mid-summer color, but note that Japanese beetles love members of the mallow family.

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