Pretty star-shaped orange flowers and white leaves adorn the mussaenda macrophylla plant. If this plant doesn’t look familiar to you, that’s because it is native to Asia and India. From what the 1878 text says, this shrub can grow quite quickly and form a jungle. The flowers are said to be dazzling but quite small. The author said it is kept by gardeners moreso for its white leaves than the flowers the bloom during the “hot and rainy seasons.”
Mussaenda macrophylla grows quite rapidly during the rainy season and should be pruned well during the cold season when it sheds its leaves. I’m guessing but the limited amount of information that I’m finding about mussaenda macrophylla might indicate that it is a plant that does not do well outside of its native habitats in Asia.
I was lucky that the folks who own the 1878 text which included this and other beautiful flowers of India provided large-sized scans of the pages. You can access the full-sized version by simply clicking on the flower image shown here.
This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.