FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS 171 
Family Malvaceae. Mallow Family. Contains about 40 genera 
and 800 species, of wide distribution in both tropical and temperate 
regions. The mallows are herbs or shrubs, rarely trees, with mostly 
palmately-veined leaves and large flowers. The calyx, of 5 sepals, is 
often surrounded by leafy bracts at the base. The petals are 5; sta- 
mens numerous and always characteristic of the family on account of 
their union by the filaments into a single column closely surrounding 
the pistil, when they are said to be monadelphous; this column is 
well shown in the flower represented by Fig. 147. The ovary 
Fig. 151. Flowers and fruit of the chocolate tree (Theobroma Cacao). Redrawn from Engler. 
is several-celled, and the fruit is usually a capsule of several car- 
pels. The mallow family as a whole possesses mucilaginous juice, 
and also yields fibers of more or less value. Cotton is the product 
of various species of Gossypium. It consists of the tuft of fine 
hairsattached to the seed, and known technically as the coma. 
One or two species of wild cotton are found in the extreme 
southern part of our country, but the commercial product is de- 
rived from species of exotic origin (see Fig. 148). One of the largest 
genera is Hibiscus, which furnishes us with such ornamental plants as 
the garden hibiscus, and the shrubby althea, which must not be con- 
founded with the true Althea, one species of which (A. officinalis) fur- 
nishes the marsh-mallow of commerce. JH. cannabinus affords a jute- 
