Abelia grandiflora

The most popular of the Abelias. An evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub with a rounded, fountain-like growth habit. Fast-growing to 4-8 ft tall and 4-6 ft wide. Fine-textured, glossy, oval, dark green leaves, 2 inches long. New growth has bronze color. Prolific, tiny white with pink sepals tubular flowers (less than 1 inch long) in clusters at stem ends, from summer to fall some times longer. Flowers are slightly fragrant.

Abelia sp.

The flowers appear in the upper leaf axils and stem ends, 1-8 together in a short cyme; they are pendulous, white to pink, bell-shaped with a five-lobed corolla.

The species from warm climates are evergreen, and colder climate species deciduous.

Species and varieties:

Abelia chinensis

Abelia longituba

Abelia grandiflora

Abelia mosanensis

Abelmoschus esculentus, Hibiscus esculentus

This annual, herbaceous shrub is readily identifiable by its beautiful, pale-yellow flowers. The pods and leaves are edible, and young pods can be used in stir-fry and soups either blanched or pickled. When cooked it resembles asparagus, yet it may be left raw and served in a cold salad.

Abelmoschus manihot

Its palmate leaves are highly dissected with five to nine deep lobes. The largest, widest leaves form at the base of the plant, where there may be some small side branches. The blooms (4-5" in diameter) are pale yellow with a dark maroon to purple center eye, and emerge from the terminal end of a central flowering stalk.It is easily propagated from cuttings, easy to cultivate, relatively disease-resistant and even is considered to be of medicinal value. It is widely planted either along borders of gardens or as an intercrop throughout many traditional gardens in the tropics. A nice flowering addition to the vegetable garden.

Abutilon vitifolium, Corynabutilon vitifolium

This is a rather lovely, deciduous shrub with downy, greyish, vine-shaped leaves. Fast-growing and, if left to its own devices, eventually large and handsome, it bears from a fairly early age copious numbers of large, pale to deep mauve flowers. Although most profuse in late spring or early summer, blooms can be found as late as October. Likes a warm position.