Hibiscus calyphyllus; Transkei
Hibiscus, the late Sima Eliovson coined this common name, Sun Hibiscus,
Large Yellow Wild Hibiscus: Wildestokroos, Sonstokroos (Afrikaans)
Article by Geoff
Nichols
The flowers are bright
yellow with a dark centre, this species inhabits bush edge and in the Durban
area is common along the Umgeni River further inland near Reservoir Hills
in the pockets of Valley Bushveld that are left.
This is another of those plants that is able to survive a wide range of
growing conditions. It grows well in the southern Cape, although it only
occurs naturally down to the eastern Cape. But beware in the winter it goes
off and may succumb to severe frost so use it where it has some shelter.
Then in the spring it will grow back to grace your summer herbaceous border
with its wonderful chunky leaves that give a colour and texture interest
to the garden.
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The
bonus of course is the yellow flowers that attract numerous beetles to eat
the petals and in doing this the petals of your precious roses are left
in peace. But most important of all this is the beginnings of using less
insecticides and starting to garden with the planet.
The wildlife value that I have observed is that birds like the Tawny-flanked
Prinia and Bleating Warbler find the leaves great anchors for which to attached
their delicately woven or sown nests. This is the one plant if you have
enough of them in a group that will be used by these birds above other,
visually to humans, suitable plants in the vicinity. I suspect that the
reason for this is the plant is covered in minute hairs that probably cause
an irritation to other ground based predators.
If you want to grow this plant come to Burman Bush and stroll up the old
roadway through the reserve where it lines both sides of the forest edge.
Collect the seed capsules in summer and once they have split open to reveal
the angular brown seeds sow them in any soil give them plenty of sunlight
and water and in a few months your seedling will be about 30-40 cm high.
The seed of all our local hibiscus species should be treated in the same
way.
