You're About to be Redirected to the New Home of Ground Control to Major Mom: Florida Discoveries 18: Chinese Hibiscus

Over the course of the day, the stamen will produce their bright yellow pollen, such as what's seen here. It's all very fast...this flower was wilted by sunset.

As promised two posts ago, here's a nice pretty post for you. This is our Chinese hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) plant that grows in front of Jacob's bedroom window in the front of our house. I was pleased to see these flowers this summer, since the week we moved into the house in late November 2010, we had a hard freeze that essentially killed off the 5' tall plant for the season. But in April it came back!

Unfortunately, when the hibiscus plant has to start from scratch, it's tough to get the profuse flowers that I was accustomed to in Hawaii (where my Dad was stationed then when I was ages 3-6) and Melbourne, FL (when we were stationed at Patrick AFB). These flower bring back so many memories of living in Hawaii where our house (we lived in military housing) had a tall hedge-like row of hibiscus along one of the outside walls.

I've been seeing the occasional flower this summer...hibiscus flowers only last one day so it's been tricky getting outside at the right time to photograph it. It needed to be before lunchtime, and most of this summer I simply wasn't thinking about heading out to photograph the front yard until it was too late in the day.

Once school started, and the kids were playing in the front yard while waiting for their respective buses, I had a chance on the first day of school to get these shots of a fresh bloom!