Malvaceae
Alternative names: Not Applicable
Description:
Trees, shrubs or herbs; leaves alternate or fascicled, usually petiolate, stipulate, with pinnate or palmate venation, usually with stellate hairs, less often with simple hairs or peltate scales.
Flowers regular, bisexual or unisexual (plants dioecious), arranged in apparent panicles, racemes, spikes, or solitary; epicalyx of 0-11 segments; calyx of 5 fused valvate sepals; petals 5, free, contorted in bud; stamens numerous, united in a tube surrounding the ovary and usually adnate to the base of the petals; anthers 1-celled; ovary superior, 3-20- or more-celled, with 1 or a few amphitropous or half-anatropous ovules in each cell; styles united at least towards their base, with capitate or decurrent stigmas.
Fruit either a loculicidal capsule or separating septicidally into as many laterally compressed fruitlets (mericarps) as there are carpels in the ovary and leaving the persistent central axis; seeds with little endosperm, with a crustaceous testa; cotyledons broad and folded several times; radicle inferior or superior.
Distribution:
|
About 85 genera and 2,000 species in most parts of the world; about 25 genera and 160 species in Australia.
|
|
|
Biology:
No text
Key to Genera:
|
|
|
|
|
3. Epicalyx longer than the calyx |
|
GOSSYPIUM 4. |
|
3. Epicalyx as long as or shorter than the calyx |
|
|
|
4. Herbs or shrubs with stellate hairs; epicalyx segments 4-10 |
|
|
|
5. Epicalyx segments or lobes linear or triangular |
|
|
|
6. Style simple, with 5 capitate stigmas |
|
ALYOGYNE 3. |
|
6. Style divided, the 5 capitate stigmas on distinct style branches. |
|
HIBISCUS 6. |
|
5. Epicalyx segments spathulate |
|
RADYERA 16. |
|
4. Trees with peltate scales; epicalyx segments 3-5 |
|
LAGUNARIA 8. |
|
HOWITTIA 7. |
|
|
|
|
|
8. Styles twice as many as the carpels |
|
PAVONIA 15. |
|
8. Styles equal in number to the carpels |
|
|
|
9. Epicalyx segments 5-11 |
|
ALCEA 2. |
|
|
|
|
|
MALVASTRUM 12. |
|
11. Flowers on axillary peruncles |
|
|
|
12. Flowers cream-coloured |
|
MALVELLA 13. |
|
12. Flowers orange to red |
|
MODIOLA 14. |
|
10. Stigmas decurrent along style branches |
|
|
|
13. Epicalyx segments fused |
|
LAVATERA 9. |
|
13. Epicalyx segments free |
|
MALVA 11. |
|
|
|
GYNATRIX 5. |
|
14. Flowers axillary or in spikes or racemes |
|
|
|
15. Stigmas decurrent on the style branches |
|
LAWRENCIA 10. |
|
|
|
16. Ovules 2 or more in each carpel |
|
ABUTILON 1. |
|
16. Ovule 1 in each carpel |
|
SIDA 17. |
Author:
Prepared by J.P. Jessop except as indicated
|