MALVACEAE. 257 



lobed leaf at the next node above or below an unlobed one; fruit purple, 

 with a bloom, 3 to 5 lines in diameter. 



Along streams throughout the Coast Eanges, Sacramento and San Joaquin 

 valleys, and Sierra Nevada foothills. Climbing trees, especially Oaks and 

 Cottonwoods, and frequently killing such by covering them with its drapery 

 of leaves. Very fragrant at flowering time (May- June) with a pleasant 

 sweet odor. Main trunk sometimes 1% ft. in diameter (Col. C. C. Eoyce, 

 Chico.). 



MALVACEAE. Mallow Family. 



Herbs or soft-woody shrubs with mucilaginous juice, tough fibrous inner 

 bark, and usually stellate pubescence. Leaves alternate, simple, palmately 

 veined and commonly lobed, stipulate. Flowers commonly perfect, some- 

 times polygamous or dioecious, regular. Calyx with 5 lobes, valvate in the 

 bud, often with an involucel of bractlets at base, persistent. Petals 5, 

 twisted in the bud. Stamens indefinite, hypogynous, monadelphous in a 

 column or tube around the pistils, the petals inserted on the base of the 

 tube. Pistil 1, composed of several to many carpels, the superior ovary 

 commonly with as many cells as styles or stigmas. Fruit a loculicidal cap- 

 sule, or the carpels separating at maturity. 



Anthers scattered along the outside of the tube of filaments; ovary 1, 5-celled; fruit a 



loculicidal capsule 1. Hibiscus. 



Anthers borne in a cluster at the top of the tube of filaments; carpels several, crowded 

 and united around a central axis, separating at maturity. 

 Styles stigmatic lengthwise on the inside; herbs. 



Bractlets 3, distinct, inserted on the calyx 2. Malva. 



Bractlets none, or one and inserted at base of calyx 3. Sidalcea. 



Styles with terminal stigma; bractlets slender or even filiform. 



Flowers roseate, rose-purple or white; mostly shrubs or suffrutescent plants 



4. Malvastrum. 

 Flowers cream-color; low decumbent herb 5. Sida. 



1. HIBISCUS L. Eose-Mallow. 



Stout herbs. Flowers showy, in ours solitary on the subterminal peduncles. 

 Involucel consisting of numerous slender bractlets. Stamen column with 

 anthers scattered along the upper part but naked at the truncate 5-toothed 

 summit. Ovary 5-celled with 2 to many ovules in each cell. Capsule loculi- 

 cidal. (Greek name for the Marsh Mallow, used by Dioscorides.) 



1. H. californicus Kell. Stems pubescent, cane-like, 3 to 7 ft. high; leaves 

 cordate, dentate, acuminate, 2y 2 to 3 in. long from the summit of petiole to 

 apex of leaf, and about as broad; petioles 1% or 2 in. long; bractlets and 

 valves of capsule ciliate; peduncles 2 or 3 in. long, jointed near the middle, 

 united with the petiole at base; calyx campanulate, cleft to the middle, con- 

 spicuously nerved at maturity and filled by the capsule; corolla white or 

 roseate, with deep crimson center, 3 to 4 in. long; capsule exceeding 1 in. 

 long; seed minutely papillate. 



Low marshy places along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. 



Lavatera assurgextiflora Kell. Tree Mallow. Shrub with ample maple- 

 like leaves and showy rose-colored axillary flowers subtended by a 2 to 3-lobed 

 involucel ; anthers scattered ; fruit a depressed whorl of smooth carpels. — Com- 

 monly cultivated at San Francisco and said to be naturalized. 



2. MALVA L. Mallow. 

 Ours annuals or biennials. Involucre of 3 distinct bractlets, inserted on the 

 base of the calyx. Calyx cleft to the middle into 5 broad lobes. Petals whitish 



