Legendary Mutation

Visitors to Charleston this time of year get a special treat with the blooming beauty of the small tree known as Confederate Rose. The species is actually of the Hibiscus family, not a rose, and is certainly not Confederate, considering it originates in Asia, but its florid petals look very much like roses, and were very popular in the antbellum South, thus the name. The Confederate Rose is scientifically known as Hibiscus Mutabilis, and as the name suggests, it undergoes a remarkable mutation, changing petal colors in the space of a single day. Flowers that burst forth lily white in the morning will turn light pink by day’s end, and eventually shrivel to blood red. Botanists are not in complete agrement as to what causes the change, but the catalyst appears to be a pigment enzyme in the petals that is triggered by sunlight.
According to Southern legend, the flower got its name from an incident during the War Between the States, when a wounded Confederate soldier clutched the flower as he lay dying, and his slowly-dripping blood changed its color from white to red. It is a great story and a great looking tree in bloom, and in Charleston’s sub-tropical climate, this Asian transplant grows as if it were native.