Etymology
The species name lives up to the epithet, mutabilis meaning changeable or variable. Many of the common names draw upon its colorful mutability - opening up pale pink or white and darkening into shades of red as the day advances. Confederate Rose is a common name that colors the epithet with the drama of the Civil War, a felled soldier bleeding unto a bed of white hibiscus flowers, the petals slowly soaking red.

Botany
Amapola is an erect, branched bushy shrub or small tree, about 2 to 4 meters high, densely covered with short, grayish, stellate hairs. Leaves are broadly ovate to orbicular ovate, 5-lobed or 5-angled, 7 to 20 centimeters long, with pointed tip, heart-shaped base and toothed margins. Calyx is 3 to 4 centimeters long, with 5 oblong-ovate lobes, connate below. Corolla is 10 to 12 centimeters in diameter, single or double, opening pale pink or nearly white, growing darker in color as the day advances.

Distribution
- Occasionally planted for ornamental purposes in the larger towns of the Archipelago.
- Not spontaneous.
- Native of the Old World.
- Now pantropic.

Constituents
- Study isolated five flavonol glycosides from the ethanol extract of petals.
- Study isolated ten compounds: tetracosanoic acid, B-sitosterol, daucosterol, salicylic acid, emodin, rutin, kaemferol-3-O-B-rutinoside, kaemferol-3-O-B-robinobinoside, kaemferol-3-O-B-D-(6-E-p-hy-droxycinnamoyl)-glucopyranoside.

Properties
- Flowers are considered pectoral, emollient and cooling.
- Considered expectorant, cooling, antidotal.

Parts used
Leaves, roots, flowers.

Uses
Folkloric
- In China, flowers and leaves considered expectorant, cooling, analgesic and antidote to all kinds of poison.
- In China medicine, leaves one of the component in a medicine used for treating tuberculous lymphadenitis; the flowers for treating nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
- Decoction of flowers considered pectoral.
- Used for persistent coughs, menorrhagia, dysuria and wounds, especially burns and scalds that are slow to heal.
- Leaves and flowers applied to swellings and skin infections.
- Infusion of flowers used for chest and pulmonary complaints; also used as stimulant.

Studies
• Antiproliferative / Anti-HIV1 Reverse Transcriptase / Lectin: Study isolated a hexameric 150-kDa lectin from dried H mutabilis seeds. The galactonic acid-binding lectin potently inhibited HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. It also exhibited weak antiproliferative activity towards hepatoma HepG2 cells and breast cancer MCF-7 cells.
• Nitric Oxide Scavenging Activity: Study of the ethanol extracts of four medicinal plants, including Hibiscus mutabilis, showed dose-dependent NO scavenging activity. Results suggest a potential for the plants as novel therapeutic agents in the regulation of pathologic conditions caused by excessive generation of NO and its oxidation product.
• Anti-Tyrosinase Activity: In a study of four species of Hibiscus, H mutabilis was next to H tiliaceus in anti-tyrosinase activity.
• Bacteriostasis: In a study of extracts of H. mutabilis, the bacteriostasis effect was highest with E. coli and best with a 70% alcohol extract.

Availability
Wild-crafted.
Cultivated.
Flower extracts in the cybermarket.