FOTD – March 6, 2019 – Doña Aurora

Doña Aurora was first found in 1915 in the vicinity of Mount Makiling as a spontaneous mutant of the species Mussaenda philippica. Doña Aurora is named after the wife of the former president Manuel Quezon, and has been utilized as one of the parents in the development of the Mussaenda hybrids.

It is a shrub or small tree, 3 to 5 meters high. Leaves are opposite, broad-ovate, with short-pointed tips, dark green and glossy. Calyx lobes are expanded into white or greenish-white, large, leaf-like, oval bracts; the green blade expanded with short-acute or blunt tip. Flowers are small, tubelike, expanded into 5, ovate lobes, yellowish orange in colour.

For: FOTD – March 6, 2019 – Wildflowers