Hibiscus calyphyllus

Hibiscus calyphyllus, the lemon-yellow rose-mallow or in Afrikaans wildestokroos (wild hollyhock or literally, wild stick-rose), is a rounded shrub or slightly woody herb that branches, growing to 2 m.

The pale green, velvety leaves are large, heart-shaped or pointedly lobed. Their margins are irregularly toothed or scalloped.

The flowers grow solitary from leaf axils, lemon-yellow in colour with a maroon or almost black eye in the centre. The five petal tips are rounded, slightly creased, spreading to a diameter of 10 cm to 12 cm. There is a collar or epicalyx of five narrow bracts around the flower base, the sepals joined at the base, forming a cup. Many stamens with globular anthers spread around the staminal column above the dark corolla base. The style above the stamens is branched with five dark, disc-shaped stigmas.

The fruit is a papery capsule, the seeds velvety or smooth.

The distribution is in the east of the country, from the east of the Eastern Cape to Limpopo as well as in the eastern parts of the Free State and North West, also in tropical Africa.

The habitat is forest, particularly their margins and thickets. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; www.plantzafrica.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).