PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Hibiscus / Seaside Mahoe
Wikimedia Commons — CC, credited & licensed per image
Malvaceae family

Seaside Mahoe Hibiscus pernambucensis

Native Specialist-bee host
Also known as: Yellow mahoe

Seaside Mahoe is a perennial tree native to Puerto Rico. A host for pollen-specialist native bees.

More about this plant

Hibiscus tiliaceus, commonly known as the sea hibiscus or coast cottonwood, is an evergreen species of flowering tree in the mallow family, Malvaceae, with a pantropical distribution along coastlines. It has also been introduced to Florida and New Zealand. It has been debated whether this species is native or introduced to Hawaii. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Perennial
In the garden
Tree layer (canopy / understory) — Sits in the tree of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~20 caterpillar species

Hibiscus supports ~20 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Hibiscus in North America, including:

Acontia delecta · owlet moth Anomis commoda · owlet moth Anomis erosa · Yellow Scallop Moth Anomis flava · Cotton Looper Automeris io · giant silk moth Bagisara brouana · owlet moth
+ 8 more species →
Bagisara rectifascia · Straight Lined Mallow Moth Chionodes hibiscella · twirler moth Crocidosema plebejana · leafroller moth Eudryas unio · Pearly Wood-Nymph Halysidota cinctipes · Florida Tussock Moth Helicoverpa zea · Corn Earworm Hyphantria cunea · tiger moth Loxostege albiceralis · snout moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees specialist-bee host

Specialist native bees depend on it.

Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Hibiscus is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.

Xerces pollinator conservation →
Specialist hosts from Smith et al. 2024.
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (11) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts · Smith et al. 2024 (CC BY)
[09] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)
[10] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[11] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…