Bring a touch of the tropics into your home with these beautiful vintage hibiscus drawings and botanical illustrations, all free to download. Featuring colourful, exotic blooms from antique botanical books, these public-domain flower prints are perfect for wall art, decoupage, crafts, and tropical-inspired decor.
Showy hibiscus flowers come in many colours. From white to pink, red, blue, orange, yellow or purple. Over 220 different varieties of hibiscus flowers have been identified. The trumpet-shaped flowers range from 4-18cm and have a minimum of five petals.
Interesting Tidbits About Hibiscus Flowers
- The Hibiscus is a nyctinastic plant. This means that it closes its leaves at night to protect the plant against cold and then opens them again in daylight.
- As well as being a popular ornamental and cultural plant, the Hibiscus plays an important ecological role. Butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds are attracted to hibiscus flowers.
- The dried flowers make a popular red coloured tea, high in vitamin C.
- Hibiscus tea has many health benefits, including treating high blood pressure, high cholesterol, anxiety, and digestive and inflammatory problems.
- Hibiscus cannabinus is a variety used to make paper.
- The national flower of Hawaii is the yellow Hibiscus. South Korea, Malaysia and the Solomon Islands also have Hibiscus as their national flower.
- Polynesian women used to wear a hibiscus flower in their hair. A flower behind the left ear meant she was in a relationship. If the flower was worn on the right, that meant she was single.
- In Sri Lanka, the hibiscus plant is called the “shoe plant“. Probably because the flowers bring back the shine of the natural leather when rubbed on shoes.
How to Download the Hibiscus Prints
Downloading the hibiscus illustrations is quick and easy. Scroll through the post and click on any image (or the link beneath it) to open a larger, high-resolution version. Once the image opens, right-click and select ” Save Image As “ (or tap and hold on mobile) to download it to your device.
All of the hibiscus botanical prints featured in this collection are in the public domain, meaning they are free to use for personal and creative projects. Print them for tropical wall art, use them in decoupage and paper crafts, or incorporate them into your own designs and DIY decor.
If you want to have a go at drawing your own hibiscus flower, check out my hibiscus how-to-draw post.
Magazine Botanicals 1-8
The first 8 botanical prints in this collection are from either Edwards’ Botanical Register or Curtis’s Botanical Magazine.
A hibiscus botanical illustration is from the 1844 edition of Edwards’ Botanical Register.
A hibiscus flower native to Australia, and more commonly known as the Toilet Paper Bush. Another hibiscus from Edwards Botanical Register.
Again from Edwards.
Scientifically known as Hibiscus laevis, and native to North America. The illustration is from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 1922.
From Edwards.
This hibiscus print is from an 1806 edition of Curtis’s botanical magazine. This Hibiscus is found in the wetlands of the eastern United States, from Texas to the Atlantic states and up to southern Ontario.
Hibiscus waimeae is endemic to the island of Kauaʻi in Hawaii. Another hibiscus drawing from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (1914).
Hibiscus Prints 9-23
This is the Hibiscus roseus, more commonly known as the Chinese rose. It’s a tropical plant, widely grown as an ornamental flower in the tropics and subtropics.
The flower print is from the 1896 book, Favourite flowers of garden and greenhouse /by Edward Step.
A drawing of a flower commonly known as a tropical hibiscus. The showy flowers attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
Flower illustration from Botanical Register; Consisting of Coloured Figures of Exotic Plants Cultivated in British Gardens; with their History and Mode of Treatment by Ker Gawler, 1817.
The flower is more commonly known as the Brazilian Rosemallow and is found from Central to South America.
12. Blue-winged Yellow Swamp-Warbler & Cotton Rose
This delightful drawing of a male and female swamp-warbler and a cotton rose (Hibiscus grandiflorus) is by J.J. Audubon. J.J. Audubon (1785-1851) is an American artist and naturalist best known for The Birds of America (1827–1839), considered to be one of the finest ornithological works ever completed.
More of his beautiful paintings can be found in this collection of American songbirds.
A large purple flower native to Southern and Southeast Asia, more commonly known as Monarch rose mallow.
More commonly known as the largeleaf rosemallow, it is found in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia.
The yellow Hawaiian Hibiscus is the state flower of Hawaii. The flower illustration is from the 1885 book Indigenous Flowers of the Hawaiian Islands by Mrs Frances Sinclair.
16. Scarlet Rosemallow Black and White Drawing
A black and white drawing of a scarlet rosemallow (Hibiscus coccineus), from A flora of North America by William Barton (1821).
17. Scarlet rosemallow in colour
The botanical hibiscus painting is by Thomas Meehan, from The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States in their botanical, horticultural and popular aspects, Volume II (1879).
This Hibiscus is found in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. The drawing is from the Dutch book Atlas of the tree species of Java, by Dr SH Koorders and Dr Th. Valeton,1915.
19. Comfortroot or Pineland Hibiscus
The engraving of this flower is from the Welcome Collection in London.
Another North American hibiscus is scientifically known as Hibiscus lasiocarpos. The flower drawing is from the book, Aquatic and Wetland Plants of the Southwestern United States, by Donovan S. Correll and Helen B. Correll.
From the magazine Addisonia: colored illustrations and popular descriptions of plants (1918).
22. Confederate Rose –Hibiscus mutabilis
From the Botanist’s repository for new and rare plants, Henry Charles Andrews, 1797.
This variety of Hibiscus is popular for making hibiscus tea. Botanical illustration from Flore médicale des Antilles , 1821.
A Pomological Watercolour illustration of the hibiscus fruits of the Rosella plant, 1906.
Other Related Botanicals
I hoped you enjoyed this collection of vintage hibiscus drawings and illustrations. Don’t forget to check out some of the other popular botanical flower drawings featured on the site.
For more stylised vintage flower prints, check out these Art Nouveau flowers. Adolphe Millot has the best antique botanical posters.
If you fancy, you can Buy Me A Coffee Here.
Darling Clementine
Thursday 17th of February 2022
Beautiful illustrations. I love old botanical illustrations and are always on the lookout for botanical books when I go to second-hand bookstores or antiquing. Thank you for sharing these! Also, I am starting a garden and tea link up party on Friday. Would love for you to join us! https://darlingclementine-mn.com/
claire
Wednesday 23rd of February 2022
Thank you so much and thanks for the invite.