Changeable Rose-Mallow (Hibiscus mutabilis, 木芙蓉).
They can be found in gardens all over the warmer parts of the world, but it is refreshing to find them in their ancestral home in southern China. Along the Xiang river, they appear, sometimes by human design and sometimes (my favourites) through their own wild volition. They are now still more buds than blooms, but soon—and the wild ones especially—will soon erupt in heavy flowers for hungry ants, bees and butterflies. When the sun rises the flowers are white and in the evening they are reddish pink. Nature is a mad alchemist.
