Tropical Hibiscus Hybrids

The original Hibiscus x rosa-sinensis only had the wild species Hibiscus cooperi and Hibiscus kaute as parents. Whereas the so called modern tropical hibiscus hybrids have been bred by crossing Hibiscus x rosa-sinensis with several other species from Hibiscus section Lilibiscus. Many of these hybrids show a bottleneck effect due to inbreeding over several generations and/or are genetically unfit due to interfering genes from multiple involved species. As a result many of these hybrids are horticulturally inferior with much deformed petals and/or are that weak that they need to be grafted for propagation purposes. For hybridizing we have chosen vigorous and healthy plants only. We also include the wild species Hibiscus cooperi in the selection 'Nasilai Pink', as well as Hibiscus arnottianus and Hibiscus waimeae as pollen donors. The latter two Hawaiian endemic species also have quite large, and above slightly perfumed white flowers, as well as an overall rather compact and very healthy growth habit. The aim is to add new genes to hybrids in order to improve their genepool and overall robustness.

Seedling plants from all our crosses will show a whole array of new color combinations, not a single one will be alike. Some may have flowers being close to one of the parents, yet most will be quite uniquely distinct. Thus said, and as in all hibiscus hybrids, colors are mostly unpredictable, and seed raised plants will never have the same color as their parent(s). Some may be rather pastel shaded, some may exhibit an even darker color than the parents, some may show a uniform color, while others will develop multiple color shades. Be it as it is, these will never be alike the mostly boring, seen-a-thousand-times hybrids you may usually find at your local garden store. And with some very, very good luck, some offsprings may even inherit the parfumed flowers from the male Hawaiian parent. However, the gene for fragrance development is recessive, i.e. normally plants with fragrant flowers will only appear in the F2 generation - which gives you some exciting opportunities to create your own hybrids.

You may find some"bargain" offers on several well known selling platforms, where packs with 50 or even 100 seeds from supposedly tropical hibiscus hybrids are offered at a ridiculously low price. Be aware that these are scams. These fraudulous sellers will not send you any tropical hibiscus seeds, but whatever seeds from other plants they may have handy, and sometimes dry debris only. Just do a reverse image search for the displayed photo(s) - almost all fraudulous sellers use eye-catching, yet "borrowed" photos from the web, without permission from the copyright owner, nor give they any credit to the real photographer. Tropical hibiscus produce very few seeds only. Most capsules may contain whatever between 1 to 10 seeds only, rarely more. Not ot mention that quite a lot of capsules are aborted before they even mature. In general less than 10% of hand pollinated flowers will eventually form a seed capsule. Thus true tropical hibiscus seeds are always scarce and thus (subjectively) high priced. And especially our crosses with Hibiscus waimeae are simply unique and precious, as this species has not been used in hybridization on a larger level so far, and less than 3% of crosses are successful. This means that from 100 hand pollinated flowers only some 3 may form a capsule which then may contain a couple of seeds inside.

Below you find all our mother plants of tropical hibiscus hybrids and hibiscus species that we use for crossing. All mother plants with three digits have been bred locally on the Canary islands, and from these all new hybrids seeds have not been offered anywhere in the world before. A unique opportunity to add new genes to older hybrid lines.

All photos have been taken from our own plants, and colors have not been manipulated by any image enhancing program.