19. MALVACEAE. 



Fam. 19. JULVACE ML 



Trees, or more usually shrubs or herbs, mostly with 

 stellate hairs and with very tough branches from the 

 strength of the bast fibres. L. alt. stipulate with palmate 

 venation, simple or digitate. Fls. regular usually showy, 

 nearly always with brdcteoles (not in Abutilon or Bombax) 

 under the flower which often form an epicalyx. Sep. 5 

 valvate usually connate below. Pet. 5 imbricate and twisted, 

 sometimes adnate below to the staminal tube. St. oc (only 

 15 in Kydia) more or less connate into a tube, from which 

 free ends of the filaments may grow. Anthers variously 

 shaped, ultimately 1-celled. Ovary 3-4- bat usually 5- 

 many-celled, capsular in fruit or breaking up into as many 

 dehiscent or indehiscent cocci as carpels, which fall away 

 from a persistent columella. Ovules 1-more axile curved. 

 Albumen scantv or 0. Cotyledons usually crumpled or 

 folded. 



The family abounds in mucilage, and most of the species 

 yield a fibre. 



A. Shrubs or. herbs, mostly tinder shrubs. Androecium 

 tubular (filaments long in Abutilon sp.) 



I. Carpels numerous (only 5 in one species). Ovules 



2 or more in each cell. Fls. usually orange . . 1. Abutilon. 



II. Carpels 5 (rarely 4, sometimes 6-10 in Sida). Ovule 

 1 in each cell. « 



Styles as many as carpels. Fls. yellow or straw 

 coloured 2. Sida. 



Styles 10. Fls. pink. Ovary cells opposite the 

 petals . . ... . . . .3. Vrena. 



Styles 10. Fls. pink. Ovary cells opposite the sepals 4. Pavonia. 



IIL CarpelB 5. Ovules 3 or more in each cell. Fruit 

 capsular. 



Stigmas spreading. Bracteoles 5 or more . . 5. Hibiscus. 



Stigmas coherent in a clavate mass. Brctls. 4-8 small 6. Thesjpesia. 



Stigmas coherent in a clavate mass. Bretls. 3 large 

 cordate . . . ... .7. Gossypium 



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