2 HIBISCUS COCCINEUS. AMERICAN SCARLET ROSE-MALLOW. 



may be danger occasionally of the student's mistaking some 

 of the SiDecies belonging to the order for monopetalous plants, 

 as in many of the genera all the petals fall simultaneously. 

 This, however, is owing to the fact that the petals are held 

 together by the united mass of filaments with which they are 

 connected at the base. Close examination will invariably sliow 

 that they do not touch, — that they are really separate from one 

 another, and that therefore all the flowers belons^ino: to the 

 order are indeed polyjDCtalous. In some of the Malvacca: the 

 seeds are apparently naked, while in others they are enclosed in 

 a jaod, and this might perhaps be looked ujDon as a striking dif- 

 ference ; but tlie student of morphology readily understands 

 that this difference is much more apparent than real, and is of 

 use only as a distinction by which the order can be conveniently 

 divided. 



Our present genus. Hibiscus, which belongs to the pod-seeded 

 section, forms a very important division of the family, having 

 more species than Malva (from which the name Malvaccce is 

 derived), or than Sida, even if the numerous species into which 

 some botanists have divided this genus be allowed to stand. 

 The three together comprise a great part of the order. 



The name Hibiscus is regarded as of uncertain derivation ; 

 and Dr. Gray simply says it is " an old Greek and Latin name 

 of unknown meaning." In Latin writers we meet with Hibiscus, 

 Hibiscum, and Ibiscum, three terms which are evidently identi- 

 cal, and refer to some swamp-plant. Pa.xton, reasoning from the 

 orthography of the last of these terms, suggests that " the name 

 is probably derived from ibis, a stork, because that bird is said to 

 eat some of the species." But according to the ancient writers 

 the ibis cared much more for frogs and marsh rejDtiles than for 

 vegetables, and the etymology suggested by Paxton is not there- 

 fore very probable. It seems more likely that the genus was 

 called Ibiscum, that is, literally " with the ibis," from some species 

 which, like the H. pentacarpos, inhabited marshes, and that the 

 name was simply intended to express the companionship of the 



