Modern Usage
Rose of Sharon is also commonly applied to two different plants, neither of which is likely to have been the plant from the Bible:
- Hypericum calycinum, an evergreen flowering shrub native to southeast Europe and southwest Asia, and the plant generally referred to in British and Australian English as "Rose of Sharon"; and
- Hibiscus syriacus, a deciduous flowering shrub native to east Asia, the plant generally referred to in American English as "Rose of Sharon" and the national flower of South Korea. The specific epithet indicates that the plant was originally (and erroneously) thought to originate from Syria. The flower's name in Korean is Mugunghwa (Korean Hangul: 무궁화, Hanja: 無窮花) meaning 'immortal flower'. Mugunghwa (Rose of Sharon) has been loved by Koreans for thousands of years, as far back as the Gojoseon era. One of Korea's ancient Three Kingdoms, the Silla kingdom, featured 'Hwarang', or 'flower youth knights', who were famed for their intelligence, courage, and beauty. This last virtue was indicated by 'Hwa', taken from mugunghwa. Cheonji-Hwarang, the forerunners of the Hwarang, wore a cap stuck with a sprig of Mugunghwa. At that time, Mugunghwa was held as highly sacred by ancient Koreans, who called it Cheon-Ji-Hwa, meaning 'flower indicating the sky'. In more recent times it has been used as the name of a novel, film, and a railroad line.
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