Flame Acanthus is a most wonderful and useful plant.

#1 Drought tolerance, I have never seen this plants wilt even in the hottest days, and and it can go without water for at least two weeks and not suffer one bit.

#2 Nectar for hummingbirds and butterflies, if you have this plant and they are in your area they will visit it regularly, guaranteed.

#3 Long lasting beauty and adaptability, this plant will bloom in full sun and partial shade for a very long period of time, until frost causes it to go dormant.

I truly couldn't do without this plant and I highly recommend it.
Josephine.

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"Anisacanthus quadrifidus, is a species flowering plant belonging to the family of the Acanthaceae . It is native to Texas in the United States to Oaxaca in Mexico.

It is a shrub that reaches up to 3 m tall with stem branched. Young stems are green or purple, sometimes striated with white hairs usually arranged in two opposite rows. The leaves are opposite, narrowly ovate, up to 6.5 cm long, pointed, base rounded, with tiny dots on its surface and hairs. The inflorescence is a pin loose, with flowers sessile sessile or nearly all of one side of the shaft having glandular hairs. Accompanying the flowers are bracts and bracteoles deciduous.

The flowers are showy, the calyx with apex divided into 5 lobes unequal, long triangular (growing to develop the fruit), with tufts of white hairs at the tips, the corolla red-orange to red, up to 4.5 cm long, covered with hairs, consisting of a thin tube to the apex is enlarged and split into 2 lips, the entire rear lip though sometimes with the tip slightly anterior lip divided and deeply divided into 3 lobes long, two stamens, his thick filaments attached to the anterior lip of the corolla, the slim style with stigma divided into 2 lobes.

The fruit is a capsule more or less ovoid, somewhat compressed, tapering towards both ends. At maturity the fruit splits in half. It has 2-4 seeds, discoid, brown, each held by a kind of hook (retinaculum)."

Taken from wikipedia's page at: http://translate.google.com/tr...

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