History Of Hibiscus

Hibiscus have grown for centuries around the rim of the Indian and Pacific oceans. Colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries helped give the flower its romantic image. Hibiscus is understood to derive from the Greek word hibiskos, given by the Greek physician Dioscorides in the 1st century to the marshmallow plant, a close relative of the hibiscus.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, an old species that was grown as an ornamental flower in China, is believed to have been cultivated there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years - so long in fact that there is no record of it being found in the wild. Although it appears to have been in cultivation throughout much of the Asian continent, early reports of H. rosa-sinensis flowering around temples in China imply a Chinese origin, hence the name "sinensis".

Using three indigenous species, including the pearl-white H. arnottianus, which is scented, together with more than 33 others imported from other countries - notably the East African species H. schizopetalus, as well as H. cameronii -Hawaiian hybridists crossed and re-crossed them in an extensive program that produced a total of more than 5000 horticultural varieties. ("Horticultural" here means that the genetic parentage was recorded and the offspring identified, but not that there were 5000 varieties worthy of further propagation and promotion. On the contrary: in hybridizing trials only about one in every 100 or 200 will produce desirable properties of good form, foliage, flower and all-around performance.) New tropical hybrids were created from the most successful of these - large and luscious in bloom, riveting in color, and impressive in range. By now the hybrids had eclipsed the species, and so eagerly did Hawaiians embrace them that not only was the first hibiscus society formed there in 1911, but in 1923 a law was passed making the flower the symbol of the territory of Hawaii.

By the mid-20th century intensive hybridizing work was being done in Florida, and the focus of attention shifted from Hawaii to southeastern U.S.A. Later still, Australian horticulturists began trialing new cultivars with unprecedented success. By the 1980s there were over 4000 recognized tropical hybrids in cultivation. Today there are more than 10,000 hybrids worldwide. Throughout all of this breeding, H. rosa-sinensis remained the most important genetic parent, but it was not the only species used. Confusingly, it is now difficult to establish with accuracy which tropical hybrids are the progeny of H. rosa-sinensis and which are not. Indeed, the need for clarification of the general use of the term "rosa-sinensis hybrids" is overdue. There are Fijian hybrids and Hawaiian hybrids that are not derived from H. rosa-sinensis (and some that did once, but so far back in their ancestry that it's been bred out), together with many hybrids of unrecorded parentage.

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