THE MALLOW FAMILY 



MALVACE^ Necker 



SnALVACEi'E consist of about 40 genera, including some 800 species, 

 mostly herbs, some shrubs, and a few tropical trees. They are of 

 world-wide distribution, except in cold cHmates, the well-known weed 

 Malva rotimdifolia Linna?us reaching farthest north, in Russia. Al- 

 though they mostly keep to low altitudes, a few alpine forms exist in the higher 

 Andes of South America. 



They abound in a mucilaginous principle and in fibrous tissue, thus becoming 

 of the greatest economic importance, cotton, the fibrous appendage to the seed 

 of various species of Gossypium, being their most valuable product. 



The leaves of the Mallow family are simple and alternate, their stipules small 

 and deciduous. The flowers are variously clustered, or soUtary, always regular 

 and generally perfect, some being very large. The 5, rarely fewer, sepals are 

 valvate, more or less united and frequently subtended by an involucre of a num- 

 ber of narrow bracts. The petals, also 5 in number, are hypogynous and convo- 

 lute. The many hypogynous stamens are united into a column enclosing the 

 pistil, their bases united with those of the petals; anthers kidney-shaped, i -celled. 

 The ovary has several cavities; styles united upward from their bases but free 

 above, usually projecting beyond the stamen-column and generally equaling the 

 ovary-cavities in number. The fruit is a several-celled capsule, rarely a berry. 

 Seeds kidney-shaped, globose or obovoid, hard or brittle, smooth or rough, some- 

 times hairy; endosperm scant, fleshy, mucilaginous; embr}'o large, curved, or 

 folded; cotyledons leafy. 



One tropical arborescent species occurs in southern Florida. 



SEASIDE MAHOE 



GENUS THESPESIA SOLANDER 



Species Thespesia populnea (Linnaeus) Solander 



Hibiscus populneus Linnaeus 



LSO called Umbrella tree. Tulip tree, and Portia tree in the East 

 Indies,* Poppy tree. Poplar, and Catappa in the West Indies, this 

 rarely enters our area on the Keys of southern Florida, where it is a 

 low tree 2 to 4 meters high, but often a shrub with stout round twigs; 

 it is common in the West Indies, introduced from the Old World tropics. 



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