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Australian Native Plants

A beautiful blue mystery

17 years ago

Greetings Friends,

I am with the horticulture department at Fullerton College in California. We were recently allowed to dig out specimen plants from an old garden that was scheduled for demolition. Most plants were well known, but this one has us baffled:

[img]http://horticulture.fullcoll.edu/MysteryCaerulea.jpg[/img]

The short note left by the original owners said, "caerulean flower/rare -- Aus???" The flowers are 1 1/2" across and it blooms profusely. It is low and wide spreading, drought tolerant and takes hard sun well. The leaves are leathery and have a light tack.

Does anyone recognize this lovely?

Wm Erik Voss

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Comments (4)

bella_fortuni
Original Author
17 years ago
Sorry:
bella_fortuni
Original Author
17 years ago
{{gwi:2116631}}
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trish_g
17 years ago
Some sort of Hibiscus. An Alyogyne, perhaps?
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funnelweb
17 years ago
No, it is not Alyogyne. The name is very familiar to me, I have a large garden (acre and a half) mostly planted with (Australian) natives, and I know caerulean. I'm sure I had it once, in fact I thought I still did and went to the plant I thought it was, but I've tagged that Eranthemum pulchellum; a plant I purchased from the Sydney Royal Bot. Gardens. It is similar with like blue flowers, though not as large. Maybe an enquiry with the Sydney Botanical Gardens might help.

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