The Cult of the Bush-Head Ladies

Cultivating a friendship when you’re a new transplant to Florida is as important and can be as difficult as cultivating a non-native species from--oh, say—Southeast Asia.  We are all non-native species here.  My friend Gilda and I—non-native girls from the north—stretch out our limbs and thrive in the lush warmth of this place.  We love our orchids, staghorn ferns, and massive tropical plants, none of which would even dream of growing where we came from.

At the halfway point on our daily walk, there’s a towering sea grape–like tree that bears blossoms.  We stop and admire it every time we walk.  One morning, the man who lives across the street ran out and said, “Ladies, every morning you stop and stick your heads in that damn bush.  What are you doing?”  Now we are the Cult of the Bush-Head Ladies.  

A large part of that tree’s beauty, and the reason why Gilda and I became fascinated with it and ended up becoming the Cult of the Bush-Head Ladies in the first place, is its flowers.  They are like hibiscus, so lovely that you feel tempted to tuck one behind your ear and fashion a lei of them.  Yellow with an intense purple heart at their center.  But, wait, are they crimson? At first we think there are two different plants intertwining here, their blooms coexisting.    

One day it dawns on us that this is all one living thing.  Our tree has multicolored flowers.  Some are yellow with purple centers; others are so fiercely crimson that they seem to burn themselves out before falling to the ground.  Yet they are all part of one great tree, individuals joined by their mutual connection to life.  

One of the neighbors thinks the tree is a sea grape because of its large rounded leaves and its size.  I love sea grapes.  They grow invasively in this part of Florida and line Route 1 all the way down through the Keys.   

But no sea grape has flowers like these; they have “grapes” instead, from which jelly can be made. And our tree has heart-shaped, pointed leaves, not rounded, like those of sea grapes.  

It takes hours of web research to discover that this isn’t a sea grape at all, but a sea hibiscus.  Its signature trait is that, year round, it blooms yellow in the morning, its flowers gradually deepen in hue throughout the day, and then they fall to the earth after reaching their deepest crimson.  The plant isn’t local, but native to the Pacific islands, India, and Southeast Asia, where it can be used for dugout canoes, rope, grass skirts, medicines, leis, and food during times of famine.  What a marvelous plant!  Of course, if you’re hungry enough, you'll eat anything, but nevertheless a marvelous plant.

It’s a rare species here, so now there’s nothing for it but to try to grow one of my own.  First, I hack off a branch, bring it home and stick it in a pot, and become dejected when it withers and dies.  

Undeterred, I pull off several seed pods, carry them home, and place them in a paper bag to dry out.  The bag captures the seeds when the pods pop open and release them.  Leaving nothing to chance in this experiment, I soak half the seeds and nick the other half.  I plant them in a mixture of peat moss, perlite, and vermiculite; water them gently; seal their tray into a small greenhouse; and wait.