228 



MALVACEAE. 



HIBISCUS. 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 

 scars 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 Societe 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, ttye 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. 



