Actually, just a pop quiz.
Continuing the "flowers that look like Christmas ornaments" bit as started on our Facebook page…here’s another, as seen a couple of days ago in our visit to the conservatory at the Biltmore Estate, Ashevegas, N.C.
You can probably guess the family by the leaf shape.
Nice dangly peduncle, no?
Let’s have some guesses, temperate-zone readers! This had me stumped, and I’m not unfamiliar with tropicals. And yes, I want one.
(Zone 9-10 west-coasters: please sit on your hands for a bit, then you can tell us how common it is and "I pull this weedy thing out of my garden by the handful." Ha!!!)
Mine has never reseeded itself or spread via roots. I do have to prune and thin it regularly because it grows so well in USDA zone 10 (Sunset 24). Outer leaves were injured the one time our temperature got below freezing. The flowers have a strong scent and can be dripping with nectar- the bees and hummingbirds love it at this time of year. The only other one I’ve seen in San Diego is at the Zoo.
Yowser! I shuffled through botanical search terms — Hibiscus, pedunculatus, cordate leaves, pendant pink compound flowers — and then, in a frenzy of search fever, switched from botanical terms to baldly desperate ones like ‘Biltmore conservatory’ and ‘San Diego Zoo’. Nothing like a zoo that’s also a botanical garden — thanks, RJones… Dombeya wallichii is my vote, but I feel as if that ID owes more to obsessive Googling than to actual plant knowledge. Anyway, what beautiful flowers!
Dombeya something – x cayeuxii or wallichii, probably
Deb – I, too, was stumped and had to resort to google – but started with the most simple “pink ball flower”: bing bing bing! Seems to be Dombeya wallichii (yay Tom also). Malvaceae family. R.Jones – thanks for the other neat info, and not spilling the beans right off!
Biltmore Estate, Asheville, N.C.
is the correct location.
Thanks for the clarification, Ted. Ashevegas was a bit misleading what with there being so many Biltmore Estates all over everywhere.
Actually, it is in the Hydrangea family: Dombeya wallichii, Tropical Hydrangea. – Rare Flora
Check this out: http://www.rareflora.com/dombeyawa.htm