Abutilon pictum Edible upright evergreen first described from

upright evergreen first described from Hong Kong Island and named for the collector Crapnell

which is part of why grandiflorum has persisted along Coastal Plain roadsides where the native communities have largely disappeared

summer after summer

The spurred flowers are a small marvel of design

so a hard late-winter cut keeps the shrub compact and fruitful

Abutilon pictum Edible upright evergreen first described fromTwo things the common names get wrong: it is not Chinese, and it is not a maple. Abutilon pictum comes from the warm river country of southern Brazil and its neighbors, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and the maple lives only in the leaves, which are lobed and toothed enough to have fooled people into "flowering maple." It belongs instead to the mallow family, in good company with hibiscus, hollyhock, okra, and cotton, and it carries that