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Hibiscus × rosa-sinensis; photograph Ryan McMinds, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF CC BYRyan McMinds, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF

Hibiscus × rosa-sinensis L.

Chinese hibiscus; China-rose; Hawaiian hibiscus; Shoe-black plant

Malvaceae

A hybrid: H. cooperi × H. kaute, the parents Kew's World Checklist states for it (WCVP, RBG Kew).

No habitat climate
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Hibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph Hnátek Tomáš, CC BY-SA, via GBIFHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph stanislas auber, CC BY-SA, via GBIFHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph Jaja Hmm, CC BY-SA, via GBIFHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph Tangi Morehouse, CC BY-SA, via GBIFHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph nate brown, CC BY-SA, via GBIFHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph Gerry van Tonder, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF 24 photographs ›

Summary

Hibiscus × rosa-sinensis (known colloquially as Chinese hibiscus, China rose, Hawaiian hibiscus, rose mallow and shoeblack plant) is a cultigen of tropical hibiscus, a flowering plant in the Hibiscus genus and Hibisceae tribe of the family Malvaceae.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Hibiscus × rosa-sinensis", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Hibiscus

Hibiscus is a genus of plants in the family Malvaceae native to the tropics and subtropics. The genus is quite large, comprising 319 species. Hibiscus are renowned for their large, showy flowers and those species are commonly known simply as "hibiscus", or less widely known as rose mallow. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Hibiscus", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: Native range not verified: no WCVP distribution with native status for this name, so records cannot be told from cultivation and no habitat climate is derived. 475 of the 1515 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though they count for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

No native range: WCVP lists no region where it is native.
Openly licensed records, not tested against the stated range, framed on where they fall.
NativeWCVP lists no region where it is native; the regions it does list are named here. · introduced: Sardegna, Tunisia, Azores, Madeira, Benin, Gambia, The, Cameroon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Zaïre, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ascension, Comoros, Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues, East Aegean Is., China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Andaman Is., Cambodia, Laos, Nicobar Is., Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Lesser Sunda Is., Solomon Is., Fiji, Gilbert Is., Nauru, Niue, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tokelau-Manihiki, Tonga, Vanuatu, Cook Is., Line Is., Marquesas, Pitcairn Is., Society Is., Tuamotu, Tubuai Is., Caroline Is., Marianas, Marshall Is., Hawaii, California, Florida, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Is., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Trinidad-Tobago, Windward Is., Venezuela, Galápagos, Juan Fernández Is. · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Kew's description“shrub” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedNo verified native range for this name: WCVP has no entry with native status, and a checklist that only reports presence cannot tell a wild record from a garden one. The map shows 1065 openly licensed records of 1515 untested against any range; no map marker or climate is derived from them, and no sheet is built from them. 475 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.

Photographs

Hibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph 1did not loadHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph 2did not loadHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph 3did not loadHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph 4did not loadHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph 5did not loadHibiscus × rosa-sinensis, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Hnátek Tomáš, CC BY-SA, via GBIF; stanislas auber, CC BY-SA, via GBIF; Jaja Hmm, CC BY-SA, via GBIF; Tangi Morehouse, CC BY-SA, via GBIF; nate brown, CC BY-SA, via GBIF; Gerry van Tonder, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF.

Other Hibiscus 54 in the reference

Hibiscus acetosella Hibiscus acetosella Malvaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, ZuinHibiscus aethiopicus Hibiscus aethiopicus Cape Hibiscus Photo: CC BY, Martjie Fia Fourie Hibiscus aridicola Malvaceae Hibiscus arnottianus Hibiscus arnottianus White Molokai Hibiscus Photo: CC0, author not statedHibiscus biseptus Hibiscus biseptus Arizona rose-mallow Photo: CC BY, Jose Luis Leon de la LuzHibiscus boryanus Hibiscus boryanus Malvaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Planete TerreHibiscus calyphyllus Hibiscus calyphyllus Lemonyellow rosemallow Photo: CC0, author not statedHibiscus clayi Hibiscus clayi Clay's hibiscus Photo: CC0, author not statedHibiscus coccineus Hibiscus coccineus Scarlet rose-mallow Photo: CC0, author not statedHibiscus columnaris Hibiscus columnaris Malvaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Claude Marodon Hibiscus cooperi Malvaceae Hibiscus coulteri Hibiscus coulteri Desert rose-mallow Photo: CC BY, Ulises Pinedo all 55 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Hibiscus androphoro-petaloides; Hibiscus androphoropetaloides; Hibiscus arnottii; Hibiscus carminata-perfecta; Hibiscus colleri and 37 more. (GBIF Backbone)

Kew accepts as species of their own Hibiscus storckii: older names in GBIF's record of this species that Kew's World Checklist accepts as other species. (WCVP, RBG Kew, file of 2026-06-04)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Malvaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
not verified
Records
1515 georeferenced · 1065 open · range not tested

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04Kew's entry lists no native region, only 86 where it is introduced
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 112 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (68 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 22 at a herbarium, 22 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22native range not verified: no WCVP distribution with native status for this name, so records cannot be told from cultivation and no habitat climate is derived
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 216 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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