228 MALVACEAE. 
Hipeiscus. Rose of Sharon. 
(Family Malvaceae). 
Shrubs or very small trees: de- 
ciduous. Twigs rounded, fluted 
near the dilated tip, rather slender, 
glabrescent: pith rather small, 
continuous, white with green 
border. Buds not evident, their 
position usually occupied by the 
sears of fallen inflorescences or 
branch-vestiges. Leaf-scars alter- 
nate, crowded at tip, half-round 
or transversely elliptical, raised, 
shortly decurrent in more or less 
evident ridges: bundle-traces about 
4, compoundly irregular and in- 
definite: stipule-scars small, ellip- 
tical. 
Winter-character references to 
H. syriacus: — Schneider, f. 66; 
Shirasawa, 236. 
Damaskinos aand Bourgeois, in 
the Bulletin de la Société Botan- 
ique de France, 5:604, indicate the position of the inflores- 
cence below the rudiments of the vegetative bud; and the 
literature of the subject is given by Russell in the botanical 
section of the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for 1892. 
Though it is a stiff shrub out of harmony with most of 
its associates, the shrubby Althea as it is often called is one 
of the most universally planted shrubs, and in its better va- 
rieties affords an abundance of bright color through the sum- 
mer. The tender H. Rosa-sinensis is used frequently in 
bedding. 
Twigs gray: flower-scars abundant. H. syriacus. 
