60 MALVACEiE. 



Herbs or low shrubby plants, with alternate stipulate 

 leaves, and axillary or racemose, spicate or glomerate flowers. 

 Corolla flame-colored, orange-colored, or yellow. 



Etymology. Name prolonged from Malva ; given by De Candolle to his 

 section of tliat genus which included the true Mallows as well as many which 

 are referrible to the present genus, as constituted in Plantce FendleriancE, 1. c. 



Geographical Distribution, &c. The genus comprises a considerable 

 number of species, chiefly American, and indigenous to the warmer parts of 

 the country, from the plains of Missouri to those of Paraguay and the Andes 

 of Chili. It probably should also comprise the Malvse ^ Capenses of De 

 Candolle ; but it has no European representatives. 



Note. The species have been variously referred, those with a small or 

 caducous involucel, or none at all, to Sida, from which they differ in their as- 

 cending ovule and inferior radicle ; those with a manifest involucel usually 

 to Malva, from which their capitate stigmas at once distinguish them. 



PLATE 121. Malvastrum coccineum. Gray; — branch of a flowering 

 plant raised from seeds brought from Missouri by Mr. Sprague. 



1. Flower-bud, with the (caducous) 2-bracteolate involucel, enlarged. 



2. Vertical section, more magnified, showing the ascending ovules, &c. 



3. Summit of a style with its capitate stigma, more magnified. 



4. Fruit with the calyx (from Fendler's Santa Fe specimens), enlarged. 



5. Same, more magnified, with only one carpel left on the receptacle. 



6. Seed, magnified. 



7. Vertical section of a carpel, seed, and contained embryo, more magnified. 



8. Embryo detached entire, magnified. 



PLATE 122. Malvastrum Wrightii, Grmj; — branch in flower, from 

 Texas, Wright; of the natural size. 



1. Some of the stellate pubescence of the leaves, magnified. 



2. Flower-bud, with the persistent involucel, enlarged. 



3. Vertical section through the flower, showing the ovules, &c., magnified. 



4. An anther, more magnified. 



5. Summit of a style and capitate stigma, more magnified. 



0. Fruit and fructiferous calyx, of the natural size. (Carpels dehiscent.) 



7. The same, with all but one carpel removed from the axis, magnified. 



8. Vertical section of a carpel, seed, and embryo, magnified, 

 y. Seed entire, magnified. 



10. Embryo extracted entire, magnified. 



11. Tlie same, with the cotyledons spread out. 



