232 MALVACEAE. 



Family 2. MALVACEAE Neck. 



MALLOW FAMILY. 



Herbs or shrubs (sometimes trees in tropical regions), with alternate 

 leaves. Stipules small, deciduous. Flowers regular, usually perfect, often 

 large. Sepals 5 (rarely 3 or 4), more or less united, usually valvate; calyx 

 often bracted at the base. Petals 5, hypogynous, convolute. Stamens , 

 hypogynous, forming a central column around the pistil, united with the 

 bases of the petals; anthers 1-celled. Ovary several-celled; styles united 

 below, distinct above, and generally projecting beyond the stamen-column, 

 mostly as many as the cavities of the ovary. Fruit capsular (rarely a 

 berry), several-celled, or the carpels falling away entire, or loculicidally 

 dehiscent. Seeds reniform, globose or obovoid; embryo curved; cotyledons 

 large, plicate or conduplicate. About 45 genera and 900 species, widely 

 distributed in temperate and tropical regions both of the Old World and 

 the New. Many plants of the family are mucilaginous. 



Fruit of several radially arranged carpels, separating from each other when ripe. 

 Carpels as many as the stigmas. 

 Carpels 2-several-seeded. 



Carpels 1-celled ; involucel none. 1. Abutilon. 



Carpels 2-celled ; involucel of 3 bractlets. 2. Modiola. 



Carpels 1-seeded. 



Stigmas decurrent on the styles. 3. Halva. 



Stigmas terminal, capitate. 



Involucel of 2 or 3 bractlets. 4. Halvastrum. 



Involucel none. . 5- Sida. 



Carpels half as many as the stigmas, spiny. 6. P'avonia. 



Fruit a capsule, or indehiscent. 



Styles distinct ; capsules dehiscent. 



Capsule-cavities 1-seeded. " Kosteletzktja. 



Capsule-cavities 2-many-seeded. 



Herbs : or shrubs : involucel-bracts distinct. 8. Hibiscus. 



Trees ; involucel 8-10-toothed. 9. Paritl. 



Styles united; fruit indehiscent. 10. Thespcsia. 



1. ABUTTLON [Tourn.] Mill. 



Herbs or shrubs, sometimes trees in tropical countries, mostly soft- 

 pubescent, with cordate angular or lobecl leaves and axillary flowers. Involu- 

 cels none. Calyx 5-cleft. Cavities of the ovary 5-co, 3-9-ovuled. Style- 

 branches the same number as the ovary-cavities, stigmatie at the apex; carpels 

 2-valved, often rostrate, falling away from the axis at maturity. Seeds reni- 

 form, the upper ascending, the lower pendulous or horizontal. [Name given 

 by the celebrated Arabian physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina), died 1037.] About 

 100 species, natives of warm and tropical regions, the following typical. The 

 genus contains a number of ornamental species, grown for their flowers. The 

 following naturalized species is a tall coarse weed. 



