Hibiscus engleri K. Schum.

engleri: named after Dr Prof Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler (1844-1930), German Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Berlin, who initiated extensive botanical exploration in Africa.

Erect herb, up to 1.5 m tall. Stems with yellowish simple and stellate, irritant hairs. Leaves ovate to almost round in outline, up to 9 × 8 cm, shallowly to deeply 3-5-lobed or 3-5-angled, with stellate and simple bristly hairs on both surfaces; base cordate; margin irregularly toothed. Petiole up to 8 cm long with hairs like the stems. Flowers solitary in the upper leaf axils, often forming apparent terminal racemes, yellow with a maroon or dark red centre, 5-6 cm in diameter. Epicalyx bracts 7-10, very short, up to 3.5 mm long, filiform. Calyx up to 16 mm long; lobes triangular, joined at the base for 7-8 mm. Fruit an ellipsoid capsule, 15 × 9 mm, bristly hairy, carpels awned up to 3 mm.

Tropical Africa, tropical Asia and Madagascar