Adapted from a “pagan” winter solstice rite, Christmas began in the Northern Hemisphere.
Australians enthusiastically celebrate “the festive season”, even though our December 25 weather is almost guaranteed to be “inappropriate”.
Our plants are “all wrong” too…or are they?
Looking much lovelier than any purchased “Christmas bell” decoration, the featured image’s Hibiscus grows in many urban/suburban Australian gardens.
I am almost sure that today’s featured species is an import, albeit one which relishes Australian summers.
(Australia’s own Hibiscuses are equally lovely, but their flowers don’t look Coca-Cola-ish-Christmassy)
Chapters 2 and 3 in this pre-Christmas mini-series involve endemic Australian flowering plants.
(photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken in West Leederville, WA, at 6.15 pm on 05 December 2020)