Our outrageous hibiscus is peaking now during the coldest, snowiest part of the new year, as it always does. Its short-lived mission is to make us remember summer Italian ices – especially scoops of lemon and watermelon – on a hot, bee-buzzing day, and to imagine a phantasmagoric volcano erupting in impossible colors:
Hibiscuses are the result of continuing cultivation into new colors and forms, starting from ancient Polynesian experimenters. (One form is the state flower of Hawaii.) Each hibiscus flower has male and female parts. The most prominent is in the middle of the flower; it’s the “style,” which looks a bit like the Seattle Space Needle. It’s a long tube through which pollen travels to the ovary that’s hidden in the bottom of the flower.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 9, 2025.)