It’s not often that I run into a garden plant I can’t identify – at least, I would say that’s true when I’m on my home turf here in the southeastern U.S., though it’s a whole different story if I’m visiting a garden in the tropics or a desert climate. But last fall, I was taking a walk in my neighborhood when I stumbled on a botanical mystery, in the form of the plant you see here in the photo.

I had turned down a little street that I’d never been on before, and just before it ended in a cul-de-sac, bright spots of color caught my eye: intensely pink flowers in a very tall shrub. It was mid-November, camellia season, but this shrub had neither the shape nor texture of a camellia. And, some of the foliage had already turned to brilliant autumn gold, which camellias, being evergreens, just don’t do. At this point, I was pretty sure I’d found a climbing rose that had clambered into a small tree. Since the mysterious plant was in a vacant lot and not in someone’s yard, I walked over to investigate.

Hmmm… it was most definitely not a climbing rose. I didn’t know what it was.

The blooms were about four inches wide, double-petalled, and quite ruffly. They resembled the flowers of rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus), but the foliage ruled out that possibility – it was distinctly maple-shaped, very much like that of an abutilon. (Also known as flowering maple, Abutilon is a genus of tender, woody shrubs that are usually grown in pots outside of the tropics.) But abutilon has nodding, bell-shaped flowers, and these faced forward.

I plucked a leaf and took it home with me, then spent a long time searching the Internet for a match. Nothing. I grabbed my camera and returned to the site of the mystery, then emailed the photos to a friend, who immediately identified my plant as Hibiscus mutabilis. I typed the Latin binomial into the search field at Google Images and sure enough, that was it. Mystery solved. I learned that Hibiscus mutabilus went by the common name of confederate rose, and that I had discovered the double flowered form known as ‘Flora Plena.’

A Quick Synopsis of Everything I Now Know About Confederate Rose

The species name, mutabilis, is a Latin term that indicates some sort of changeability. I read that the flowers change color as they age; opening nearly white and deepening to bright pink, then turning almost purple as they begin to wither. Botanists say this lets pollinators easily target those flowers that are at their prime and filled with nectar – making the color change an evolutionary adaptation that ensures the plant will set seed and pass along its genes.

Flowers on the same shrub can range in color from white to pale blush pink to deep pink.

Confederate rose is not native to the South, but it’s so well adapted to conditions here – as demonstrated by the fact I’d found it thriving on its own in a vacant lot – that it’s become a passalong plant as people collected seeds or rooted cuttings. Possibly it got its common name because it was planted in Confederate cemeteries. It’s sometimes called cotton rose, because the flower buds resemble cotton bolls (see photo below).

Confederate rose blooms late into the fall, against a backdrop of autumn foliage.

Confederate rose starts blooming late in the summer and continues to produce flowers until the first hard frost. In zones 9 and 10 it takes the form of a woody shrub or small tree, while where I live in zone 7 it’s more likely to act as an herbaceous perennial, being killed back to the roots in winter. In colder climates, you can grow it as an annual, much as you would with other non-hardy forms of hibiscus, or try to overwinter it indoors in a pot.

If you want to grow this striking plant, you can order seeds from Summer Hill Seeds. I’d suggest starting them indoors in early spring. Cuttings are also said to root easily in a glass of water.