MALVACEAE, 135 
7. Twigs gray or greenish. T. platyphyllos. 
Twigs yellow. T. platyphyllos aurea. 
Twigs red. T. platyphyllos rubra. 
8. Leaves abruptly acuminate: fruit ribbed. T. tomentosa. 
Leaves gradually pointed, usually very oblique: fruit 
not ribbed. T. heterophylla. 
Family MALVACEAF. Mallow Family. 
A moderate-sized family, chiefly of herbaceous plants, note- 
worthy as including the most important fiber plant of the world, 
cotton: many species are cultivated for their flowers, and the 
following finds too-common use as an incongruous component of 
shrubberies. 
Hiserscus. Rose of Sharon. Rose Mallow. 
Deciduous shrubs with pale wood with minute ducts more 
crowded in spring, and rather fine medullary rays connected 
by narrow tangential bands of wood-parenchyma; moderate 
somewhat angled twigs; rather large continuous pale pith; 
alternate somewhat raised transversely elliptical small leaf-scars 
with about 4 bundle-traces in an ellipse; small round stipule- 
scars; petioled palmately nerved and commonly lobed moderate 
leaves; marrow-bracted large perfect polypetalous axillary 
flowers with many monadelphous stamens; ovoid capsules; and 
curved-ciliate flat seeds. 
Leaves cuneate, acutely lobed and crenately toothed. H. syriacus. 
Family DILLENIACEAE. 
A small unimportant family; the following used as rapid 
climbers, one of them, Actinidia polyga:na, a curiosity because 
of its attractiveness for cats, 
ACTINIDIA, 
Woody deciduous twiners with soft brownish wood with 
both large and small diffused ducts and fine medullary rays; 
rounded often chambered or colored pith; alternate shield- 
shaped raised leaf-scars with a U-shaped bundle-trace; small 
buds concealed in the swollen nodes; round to oblong petioled 
