Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: mark smyth on September 04, 2007, 06:41:58 PM

Title: plant ID
Post by: mark smyth on September 04, 2007, 06:41:58 PM: I've been sent this photo for ID. Does anyne know what it is? It's growing in a Californian garden. The seed pod is feathery.

You'll see from the name the sender thinks it is a Geranium
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: Maggi Young on September 04, 2007, 08:26:22 PM: How do you mean "feathery" ? Looks like it might be poppy familiy to me, but feathery doesn't really fit that!
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: Lesley Cox on September 04, 2007, 09:58:43 PM: And not a geranium.
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: mark smyth on September 04, 2007, 10:36:51 PM: look at this for a photo to be identified
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: fermi de Sousa on September 05, 2007, 05:03:13 AM: I would hazard a guess at something in Malvaceae.
Maybe Sphaerulea.
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: Brian Ellis on September 05, 2007, 10:02:23 AM: It looks very much like Hisbiscus trionum - an annual.

http://www.missouriplants.com/Others/Hibiscus_trionum_page.html

I'll see if mine is still flowering or not.
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: Brian Ellis on September 05, 2007, 10:16:32 AM: No flowers today but here it is. It is not a big plant, I've had them up to about 18'' at best, but very attractive!
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: Maggi Young on September 05, 2007, 10:18:16 AM: Well done Brian!
Mark, I hope your friend is suitably impressed with this ID from such bad photos!
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: Afloden on September 05, 2007, 02:36:55 PM: Yes, Hibiscus trionum.

Seems strange that you would want to grow this. In Kansas it was one of the top ten noxious weeds! It was common everywhere in cultivated fields, pastures, and roadsides. I suppose the cooler weather tempers its aggressiveness.

Aaron Floden
Knoxville, TN
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: Anthony Darby on September 05, 2007, 02:40:29 PM: You friend could have waited for the fog to lift before taking the pics Mark? ::)
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: mark smyth on September 05, 2007, 03:14:09 PM: no friend of mine just one of the many queries I get via my web site marksgardenplants. I had an idea all along it would be a Hibiscus

Thanks for the ID
Title: Re: plant ID
Post by: Lesley Cox on September 05, 2007, 09:35:44 PM: It is an NZ native yet I didn't recognize it at all from the pics. Perhaps not surprising. Brian's pic is lovely. I don't think we grow it much because of its being an annual but it turns up now and then in garden centres.

Just looked in our Flora and it is listed but there is a note to suggest that neither "native" species is indigenous, perhaps being introduced from Europe by the earliest settlers. According to the Flora, H. trionum does not have prickly stems while H. diversifolius does.