from the November 29, 2009 Newsletter issued from Hacienda Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO
TURK'S TURBANS/ TULIPANES
At the end of the rainy season the forest is lush, green and shadowy. It smells of mould. I assume that lack of sunlight on the forest floor is responsible for the paucity of flowering plants there, as well as this being the beginning of the dry season. Orchids and bromeliads are easy to find, but very rarely are they flowering.  One head-high bush is flowering, however, as shown above.

Though this is a native Mexican plant very much at home in our reserve here, the English speaking world has long admired and propagated the species, bestowing it with several English names: Turk's Turban, Ladies' Eardrops, Scotchman's Purse, and Wild Fuchsia among them. People here use the name Tulipán. It's MALVAVISCUS ARBOREUS, a member of the Hibiscus Family, the Malvaceae.

You can see how similar the blossom is to hibiscus flowers, the main differences being that the Tulipán's corolla doesn't open much more than is shown in the picture, plus there's that tall, slender item projecting upward from the flower's center. You can see better what's going on there in the close-up below:

That slender thing is composed of numerous male stamens arising from a cylinder surrounding the threadlike style of the female pistil. The fuzzy, spherical thing at the top is the stigma where pollen grains land and germinate. The pale purple, granular items are anthers shedding pollen. I dissect a blossom and show how all this hangs together in hibiscus flowers at http://www.backyardnature.net/fl_hibsc.htm.

In the US this species is planted outdoors in the Deep South, in USDA Hardiness Zones 8-10. One website says of it, "It is an old fashioned, 'pass-along' southern plant, attracting butterflies and hummingbirds."