Field of Science

Hawaiian branch of the Begonia family

The In Defense of Plants blog has a great article posted about the Hawaiian endemic member of the Begonia family, Hillebrandia sandwicensis, which except for this one exception, are species of Begonia.  TPP just saw this plant for the first time a few weeks ago on our late Jan. early Feb. vacation.  No question it's a member of the family, and never would have even questioned it if told it was another species of Begonia.  Also worth clicking over to see the excellent image of the "male" and "female" flowers where generally the stigmas mimic the stamens fooling pollinators but providing no reward.  Unfortunately the plants TPP observed had no flowers. Didn't they know who was there?
The feed from the IDOP blog is on TPP's side bar, but wanted to call this post from a couple of days ago to your attention.

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