I was delighted to be able to get my hands on Grewia occidentalis this year: it has been a good few years since I last grew it. The last time I had it in my possession it was in the Tilaceae which seemed to make perfect sense to me. This time around it is in a different family, the Malvaceae. And that makes perfect sense too if you look at those stamens and the five-parted stigma. But all the clay and epicalyx nonsense of Malvaceae makes no sense here. But never mind. It is still just as lovely.

It is a shrub or small tree from South Africa and also known as the cross berry because of the four-seeded fruits, though I have never seen them. The blooms are attractive to butterflies but as my plant is in the greenhouse at present I cannot vouch for this.

The flowers are not huge, no more than 3cm across and they last only a day but they are produced on all the new shoots and so there are always plenty of flowers open. It is a tall, rather sprawling shrub in the wild and I like the fan-like growth habit.

The leaves are small and neat and in the right scale for the flowers. The pink petals are arranged in two rows and the base of the flower reminds me a lot of a passion flower. I suspect the nectar is right at the base, below the ring formed by the upper five petals and I keep man-handling the stamens in the hope that they will move, because they remind me so much of Sparrmannia, but they don’t. But I will keep trying.

It is reportedly hardy to just below freezing but I will keep it free from frost and keep it in a pot. It has coped with the high summer temperatures in the greenhouse this summer where it frequently exceeded 40c but next year I will put it outside where it may please the butterflies as much as it delights me.

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