Abutilon megapotamicum 25/2 Restock holding ground in southern gardens

holding ground in southern gardens where grapefruit and orange could never survive

and room to show off

long-established virus

and by fall the yellow globes ripen into a harvest that is as much story as sustenance

A pollinator magnet exactly when the season's nectar runs short

Abutilon megapotamicum 25/2 Restock holding ground in southern gardensAbutilon megapotamicum is the trailing one of the flowering maples, a slender, half vining deciduous shrub that drapes and clambers rather than standing stiffly upright. Its species name means "of the big river," for the Rio Grande basin of southern Brazil where it grows wild, and like the rest of its tribe it belongs not to the maples its leaves suggest but to the mallow family, in company with hibiscus and hollyhock. The flowers are its whole charm: