A glabrous, 2-4 m tall shrub with spreading or usually drooping branches. Leaves 2-7 cm long, 1-5 cm broad, elliptic, sharply serrate, entire below; petiole short, 0.5-2 cm long. Flowers axillary, solitary, pendulous; pedicel 8-15 cm long, articulate nearly in the middle; epicalyx segments 5-8, very short, 1-2 mm long. Calyx tubular, 1-1.5 cm long, irregularly 2-5 lobed. Petals 4-6 cm long, 2-3 cm broad, pinkish, with pink or red streaks, laciniate, recurved. Staminal column 8-10 cm long. Capsule 3-4 cm long, 1 cm across, oblong, cylindric. Seeds smooth, glabrous.

Type: Gard. Chron. n.s. 12: 272. f.45.1879.

Distribution: Native of Kenya and Tanganyika (Exell, Fl. Zambes. 1:470. 1960). Elsewhere cultivated.

It is also a common ornamental shrub cultivated in Pakistan. This has been used as male parent in the crosses with Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L. and its varieties (Wilcox and Holt in Hawaii A gr. Exp. Sta. Bull. 29.1913).