Botanical Magazine 106 - 1880.pdf - hibiscus.org

It was introduced into England in about 1845, I believe,
through the late Dr. Royle's collectors, who were attached
to the Saharumpore Gardens.
DESOB. Quite glabrous. Roof stock woody, tufted, pros-
trate, branched, tip covered with the brown withered sti-
pular sheaths, sending up several erect flowering stems and
occasional prostrate leafy shoots. Leaves chiefly radical,
two to four inches long, oblanceolate or elliptic-oblong,
acute or obtuse, narrowed into a long or short and slender
petiole ; margins recurved and minutely wrinkled, almost
crenulate ; nerves reticulate ; stipules elongate, entire or
sparingly split; cauline leaves much smaller, sessile, elliptic.
Flowering stems six to eight inches high, stout or slender.
Flowers in solitary terminal cylindric obtuse spiciform
racemes, two to three inches long, by half to two-thirds of
an inch in diameter, crowded ; bright rose-red, concealing
the membranous obtuse sheathing stipuliform bracts ; pedi-
cels fascicled often in fours, filiform, curved, rigid. Perianth
one-sixth to one-fourth of an inch broad ; tube very shortly
obconical ; segments broadly elliptic or obovate. Stamens
eight, filaments filiform, equalling the perianth. Ovary
trigonous; styles three, filiform; stigma punctiform.•
J> D. H.
Fig. 1, vertical section of flower; 2, stamen ; 3, ovary ; 4, ovule :•all enlarged.