Alyogyne huegelii
Family: Malvaceae
Common name: Native Hibiscus

Description:

Alygoyne huegelii is an open, spreading shrub 1 - 2.5m high by 1 - 3m wide with lobed leaves.
This plant is quick growing and benefits from pruning after flowering.
The hibiscus-like flowers, which appear in spring, summer and autumn, are 7 - 10 cm in diameter. They range in colour from mauve, through white and yellow to deep purple.
A. huegelii is a hardy and adaptable shrub which enjoys full sun to part shade. It prefers well drained sand, loam or clay soils and tolerates a wide range of pH, from acidic to alkaline (pH 8). It is lime, drought and frost tolerant. This plant is suitable for gardens in the Adelaide Hills or Plains as well as coastal or inland gardens.
Alyogyne huegelii has habitat value for birds.

Erect shrub 1-2 m high; tomentose with short stellate hairs; leaves deeply palmately 3-5-lobed, undulate, usually suborbicular in outline, 1.5-3 (sometimes to 5)cm long, with obovate or oblong (or rarely lanceolate) pinnatifid or coarsely toothed obtuse lobes, green on both surfaces; petioles 5-30 mm long.

Peduncles solitary, usually longer than the leaves, 4-70 mm long; epicalyx of 7-10 unequal linear or subulate lobes 4-10 mm long, up to one-third of the length of the calyx, divided to the base or fused to form a cup at the base; calyx 18-25 mm long, tomentose or villus, deeply divided into 5 lanceolate-acuminate 3-5-nerved lobes; petals violet or purple, not more deeply coloured at the base, 4.5-7 cm long, 1-toothed at the upper outer edge, softly stellate-tomentose or villous on the undersurface; style branches connate; stigmas subsessile, fusiform, spreading stellately.

Capsule ovoid-globose, shorter than the calyx, tomentose or villous, containing numerous subglabrous seeds.
Published illustration: Costermans (1981) Native trees and shrubs of south-eastern Australia, p. 224.

Propagation: From cuttings or seed
Distribution: S.Aust.: NU, FR, EP, NL, YP, SL*. WA.
Conservation status: native
Flowering time: June — Jan.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia