The ancestors of the modern hibiscus we all know and love were sprinkled all around the globe, trailing the Equator from one tropical land to the next!

They are considered to be the ancestors of the modern exotic hibiscus originally native to Mauritius, Madagascar, Fiji, Hawaii, China, and India. 

Similar to modern hibiscus, their ancestors were characterized by their free-flowering, tall bushes, and their ability to form seeds using their own pollen that would grow into genetically identical plants. 

Most of these ancestors do still exist and look very similar to the modern hibiscus of today. 

We don’t know how the original species were separated from one another, but it is speculated that at one time, they grew closer together, but continental drift eventually separated them. 

It’s also possible that they all come from the same ancestral hibiscus, and this ancestral plant evolved into different species. 

We can see this happening even now in the Hawaiian islands when plants of one of the Hawaiian native hibiscus species develop unique characteristics as they grow and evolve on separate islands. 

Another theory is that during pre-historic times, the ancestors of the Polynesian people set out from their original home in southeast Asia and migrated throughout the Pacific, carrying with them seeds of the original hibiscus species that they planted in various locations during this long migration. By the 1700s, eight cross-compatible hibiscus species were growing naturally on tropical islands off the east coast of Africa and all the way to Hawaii. 

By the 1900s, first and second-generation hybrids of hibiscus were growing in most of the sub-tropical areas of the world. Although many growers were able to improve the plants, they hadn’t yet been able to attain the flower size and huge variety of colors that were to come from the more intense hybridization in the 20th century. This was first done in Hawaii! [2]