the.com/rose of sharon
A hibiscus that stole a biblical love poem's name and never gave it back.
means A common name for certain flowering shrubs (like the hardy hibiscus and some other species) that has no fixed botanical meaning and shifts depending on who's talking and where.
from The phrase comes straight from the Song of Solomon in the Hebrew Bible, where 'I am the rose of Sharon' names an unidentified flower from the Sharon plain in ancient Israel — almost certainly not a rose as we know it, maybe a crocus or tulip-like bloom. The name drifted through centuries of translation and gardening fashion, getting reattached to whatever showy flower a given era admired, until it settled, in much of the English-speaking world, onto the hibiscus shrub — a plant the original poet never laid eyes on.
- not a rose
- it is actually a hibiscus, botanically unrelated
- biblical origin
- named from a flower in the Song of Solomon
- national flower
- South Korea's national flower, called mugunghwa
- bloom habit
- each flower lasts one day, then drops