Description: Queen Sirikit is a shrub about 7 m. tall with dense hairs on the stems. Leaves are about 15 x 8cm., oval shaped with a pointed end and sometimes hairy underside.In the Mussaenda, as in Bougainvillea, the bracts (modified leaves) are actually more colorful and showy than the flowers. Queen Sirikit’s bracts are beautiful and showy: with 5 pale pink bracts up to 15 cm long. The true petals are much smaller (~4 cm across) and bright yellow. This plant rarely sets fruit.
Geographic Distribution: Queen Sirikit is a cross between a cultivar of Mussaenda erythrophylla ‘Dona Trining’, a West African species and a cultivar of Mussaenda philippica ‘Aurorae’ which is native to the Philippines.Queen Sirikit was bred in the Philippines in the 1940s. There are more than 200 known species of Mussaenda worldwide, of which about ten are found in cultivation, with three of these being widely used for landscaping.
