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Gossypium sturtianum
Also called Darling River Rose, Cotton Rosebush
Sturt's desert rose is a woody, drought-adapted shrub from arid inland Australia, a relative of cotton, valued for its large pink to maroon flowers. Grow it in full sun, in very well-drained sandy or gravelly soil, and water sparingly.
Gossypium sturtianum, or Sturt's desert rose, is a woody shrub, closely related to cultivated cotton, found in most mainland states of Australia and the Northern Territory. It is also known as the Darling River rose, cotton rosebush and Australian cotton.
The plant has a life span of about 10 years, growing from 1–2 m tall and 1–2 m wide. The flowers are up to 12 cm in diameter: they can be seen for most of the year but peak in late winter. The colour of the petals ranges from pale pink to dark purple to maroon. The five petals are arranged in a whorl and have a dark red centre. The leaves are different shades of green, round and strongly scented when crushed.
The Sturt's desert rose is found in sandy and gravelly soils, along dry creek beds, watercourses, gorges and rocky slopes. Adaptations for this plant include:
African Wild Cotton · Tree cotton · Creole cotton · Darwin's cotton · Levant cotton · Upland cotton · Gossypium mustelinum · Gossypium raimondii · Thurber's cotton · Hawai'ian cotton · Cotton
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gossypium sturtianum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
