Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Shrubs or trees; leaves alternate, petiolate, usually stipulate, with pinnate or palmate venation, usually stellate-tomentose, less often largely glandular-hairy.

Flowers regular, bisexual or unisexual (plants monoecious), arranged in cymes or apparently axillary; epicalyx of 3 segments or 0; calyx of 5 fused valvate sepals; petals 5, free, often small or 0, contorted in bud; stamens 5-15, more or less united or free, when 5 they are opposite the petals; staminodes sometimes present; anthers 2-celled, extrorse; ovary superior, 3-5-celled, with 2 or more axile usually anatropous rarely orthotropous or amphitropous ovules in each cell; styles free or united in an apparently simple or 5-branched style.

fruit a small loculicidal capsule or the carpels becoming large separate follicles; seeds endospermous, with a coriaceous testa; cotyledons usually broad and flat; radicle usually inferior and near the hilum.

Distribution:  About 60 genera and 700 species, especially in warm areas; 24 genera and about 175 species in Australia.

Biology: No text

Uses: Brachychiton subspecies are used as ornamental trees and for fodder. A few other genera provide occasional ornamental shrubs. The American Theobroma cacao L. (cocoa) and the African Cola acuminata Schott & Endl. (the cola used medicinally and in drinks) are of major economic importance.

Taxonomic notes: The tribes occurring in Australia are briefly defined by G. P. Guymer in Morley & Toelken (1983) Flowering plants in Australia 122-125.

Key to Genera:

1. Flowers unisexual; stamens 10-15; fruit of follicles; almost glabrous trees (Subfam. Sterculioideae)	BRACHYCHITON 1.
1. Flowers bisexual; stamens 5; fruit a loculicidal capsule; stellate-tomentose or glandular-hairy shrubs or undershrubs (Subfam. Byttnerioideae)
2. Petals 0 or scale- or gland-like; the sepals may be petal-like
3. Stipules to c. 1 mm long, early caducous, or lacking
4. Sepals fused below	KERAUDRENIA 5.
4. Sepals free	LASIOPETALUM 6.
3. Stipules usually more than 3 mm long, persistent	THOMASIA 9.
2. Petals 5
5. Staminodes present; stem hairs often stellate
6. Petals flat at least below
7. Petals longer than the sepals	MELHANIA 7.
7. Petals shorter than the sepals	HANNAFORDIA 4.
6. Petals with a broad concave base embracing the anthers and ending in a linear or obovate ligule
8. Staminodes 3-partite	COMMERSONIA 2.
8. Staminodes simple	RULINGIA 8.
5. Staminodes absent; stem hairs largely glandular and relatively few stellate	GILESIA 3.

Author: Prepared by J.P. Jessop