Wednesday 23 December 2015

Yellow Hibiscus Plant

We came across this Yellow Hibiscus plant in a market. The yellow flower was big and attractive and it immediately caught our attention. The plant is just only $5 per pot. We bought it and brought it home.
 
Yellow Hibiscus Plant
Yellow Hibiscus Plant


Yellow Hibiscus Flower
Yellow Hibiscus Flower

According to the internet, the YellowHibiscus is a flowering shrub that grows on all the Hawaiian islands except Ni’ihau and Kaho’olawe. All three subspecies of the yellow hibiscus are listed as endangered species. Even in Hawaii, the plant is rare. I don’t think it is endangered as I have seen them here in Singapore and many places. Probably it is endangered in Hawaii.
 
The first thing I noticed is the large bright yellow flower. There are a couple of buds on the plant waiting to bloom.
 


Withered flower
Withered flower
 
The flower lasted only about 2 days and then it will wither and drop off from the flower stalk. The ovary is left and if it is successful in the pollination process, it will develop into a pod with seeds. If it is unsuccessful, it will drop off when it is still green. The "ovary" dropped off after two days, so it is not unsuccessful.
 
Hibiscus "ovary"
Hibiscus "ovary"
 
After the "ovary" dropped off, I checked the soil and it was dried. I watered the soil and made sure that the excess water was drained away from the bottom of the pot. I thought that it might be that the plant was under stress as it had been moved from one place to another.

Two more flowers bloomed and I used a cotton swab to transfer the pollen across from one flower to the other and vice versa. The pollens are sticky and they are quite difficult to transfer to the stigma of the pistil. The stigma is also sticky and the pollens get stuck on them.

After two days, the flowers withered and I'm hoping for the pollination to be successful. From the internet, it seems that the pollination is not usually successful and will depend on many factors. Today, I saw one of the "ovary" dropped from the plant. The other is still on the plant and I hope that this one will develop into seed pod.


One "ovary" dropped
One "ovary" dropped.
 


1 comment:

  1. Thanks. Check out my other posts on gardening. I'm going to cut the air layering of the Hibiscus branch that I did one month ago. I will blog on the outcome, whether the roots have grown or not.

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