Mu Jin Hua

Hibiscus syriacus, the rose of Sharon, is a deciduous shrub of the Malvaceae family native to East Asia (despite its specific epithet) and widely cultivated as an ornamental across temperate regions. The plant grows two to four meters tall with an upright vase-shaped habit, freely branching from the base, and bears greyish-brown bark that becomes longitudinally fissured with age. Leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to rhomboid, three-lobed with coarsely toothed margins, dark green above and paler beneath, and unfold relatively late in spring. The plant flowers profusely from mid-summer to early autumn, producing solitary trumpet-shaped flowers up to ten centimeters across in the upper leaf axils; colors range from pure white through pink, lavender, and violet to deep blue-purple, often with a contrasting darker basal blotch and a prominent staminal column.