Abelmoschus manihot Open House and general kitchen adventure

and general kitchen adventure

silver-blue juvenile needles

an understated prelude to the pearl-drop fruit that follows

The names carry their own small histories

or the ground beneath open-canopied trees

Abelmoschus manihot Open House and general kitchen adventureAbelmoschus manihot wears two faces. To a flower gardener it is the Sunset Hibiscus, a fast tropical perennial that throws up large, pale yellow blooms with a deep maroon eye all through the warm season, each one open for a day in the manner of its mallow kin. To much of the Pacific and tropical Asia it is something more fundamental: aibika, among the most important leafy vegetables in Papua New Guinea, grown in dooryards from New Guinea to Queensland