MALVACE^. 101 



California. There are several named varieties and reputed species, and 

 our forms deserve more thorough study in the field ; particularly as to 

 the nature of the stipules, if present. A mere variety with brown-purple 

 foliage is in the gardens as a border plant, and here and there spon- 

 taneous. 



Order x\t:. MALVACEAE. 



Jussieu, Genera, 271 (1789). Malvj^, Adanson, Fam. ii. 390 (1763). 



Herbs or shrubs, with mucilaginous juice, tough-fibrous inner bark, 

 alternate stipulate leaves and a more or less stellate pubescence. Flowers 

 usually perfect, complete and regular ; the 5-cleft valvate (rarely imbri- 

 cate) and persistent calyx often subtended by a supplementary whorl 

 of bracts and thus appearing double. Petals 5, hypogynous, at base 

 commonly joined to each other and io the base of the tube of the 

 monadelphous stamens, convolute in bud. Stamens 5—cc , more or less 

 completely monadelphous and sheathiag the styles ; anthers usually 

 reniform, 1-celled. Ovaries distinct, forming a ring around a central 

 columnar elevation of the receptacle and becoming achenes, or joined 

 into one 5— 10-celled organ and becoming more or less capsular. Seeds 

 usually roundish, with little or no albumen. 



Hints of tlie CJenera. 



Stamens oo; anthers reniform, 1-celled, 



(lalyx with cup-like invohicre at base, ------- 1 



with or without 1 — 3 bracts at base, 



Fruit a whorl of 1-seeded carpels, - - - - 2, 3, 5—7 



" " " 2— 9-seeded carpels, - - - - 4,7,8 



" a 5-celled capsule, --------9 



Stamens 5; anthers elongated, 2-celled, --.------10 



1. LAVATERA, Tounuforl. Stout shrubs with coarse flexible 

 branches, ample palmately lobed leaves, and axillary showy flowers. 

 Involucel 3-lobed. Stamineal tube divided at summit into numerous 

 filaments. Style-branches stigmatose lengthwise, on the inside. Fruit 

 a depressed whorl of 5-8 crowded achenes surrounding the angular 

 column of the receptacle which scarcely exceeds them, and covered by 

 the persistent calyx.— Genus artificially separated from Malta on account 

 of the gamophyllous involucel mainly ; referred to Allhxa by Baillon. 



1. L. assur^eutiflora, Kellogg, Proc. Calif. Acad. i. 14 (1854) ; Greene, 

 Pitt. i. 77 ; Baker, Journ. Bot. xxviii. 240. Coarse, stout, soft-woody, 

 flexuous-branched, 6—15 ft. high, the young branches, pedicels and 

 calyx, rarely the leaves also, stellate-hairy or -tomentose : leaves long- 

 petioled, 3—6 in. broad, angularly 5— 7-lobed, the lobes coarsely toothed: 

 fl. solitary, on a long deflexed and curved pedicel : petals 1— 1^3 in. long, 

 cuneate-obovate, truncate or retuse, abruptly reflexed from near the 



