roselle

My grandma always had these growing - I still remember her home-made rosella jam. We used to call this the Jam Plant when we were kids.

I didn't know these are made into jam. Over here, we call this the "ribena plant". It makes a refreshing drink.

The roselle plant is known as the rosella plant over here - Hibiscus Subdantta. My grandma's generation and my mum's would use the fruit to make rosella jam and sometimes rosella jelly. I've still got my grandma's recipe but I've never made it myself. Lots of gardens in my grandma's day would have rosellas growing but they're not at all common now.

I forgot to mention that rosella jam and jelly is only really familiar to anyone who grew up in my home state of Queensland from the 1940s through to the 1970s - if you ask anyone from the other Australian states about it, they'll look at you slightly askance because they've never heard of it!

Thank you, Bernieh, I do enjoy learning from GOY ....

Do you plant roselle in your garden?

Over here, the roselle fruit is not found everywhere, only certain supermarkets sell them.

No, Autumn I haven't any growing in my garden. The rosella fruit can only be found occasionally in certain supermarkets here - same as over there.