560 PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY 
Althea officinalis, etc.), occasionally shrubs in temperate regions 
(Hibiscus Syriacus or Rose of Sharon, etc.), frequently shrubs or 
tall trees in the tropics. Stems, as in Sterculiacee and Tiliacea, 
sometimes forming numerous layers of hard and soft bast. 
Leaves alternate and stipulate, ovate, ovate-cordate, orbicular 
or palmately-compound; venation pinnate or palmate. Stems, 
roots and leaves contain mucilage cells. Inflorescence a raceme 
locyles7~ 
with ovules 
Fic. 425.—Median lengthwise section through flower of American Upland Cotton 
(Gossypium hirsutum) X 2. (After Robbins.) 
or fascicle of cymes. Flowers regular, pentamerous; calyx 
green, of five aposepalous sepals but frequently surrounded 
outside by an epicalyx. Both calyx and epicalyx are persistent. 
Corolla of five petals, varying in color, which are more or less 
fused with stamens at their bases, stamens monadelphous and 
forming an upright column (staminal column) enclosing the styles; 
anthers one-celled, dehiscing transversely; pollen grains echinate; 
pistil loosely or strongly syncarpous, rarely sub-apocarpous of 
thirty to five carpels. Fruit either a circular set of cocci (Malva), 
