Citation: L. Sp. Pl. 693 (1753).

Derivation: Greco-Latin name for some sort of mallow.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Hibiscuses.

Description:
Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs with few or many stellate hairs; leaves alternate, toothed to deeply usually palmately lobed, ovate to orbicular in outline, petiolate.

Flowers bisexual, pedunculate in leaf axils, showy; epicalyx of 6-c. 10 free or united segments, shorter than the calyx; calyx shallowly or deeply divided into 5 lobes, persistent; petals 5, yellow or pink to purple, partly pubescent outside; anthers numerous, along a long or short staminal tube; carpels 5, in a single whorl; stigmas 5, capitate, on free or variously fused styles; ovules few or many in each cell.

fruit a 5-valved loculicidal capsule sometimes splitting septicidally as well, usually globular; seeds reniform, glabrous to woolly.

Distribution:  Perhaps 300 species in warm parts of the world; about 35 native to Australia. Several species, including H. rosa-sinensis (Chinese hibiscus) and H. syriacus (Syrian hibiscus), are grown as ornamentals. The edible okra is H. esculentus.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:

1. Epicalyx segments free or shortly fused, linear
2. Calyx lobes shorter than the tube	H. trionum 5.
2. Calyx lobes longer than the tube
3. Leaves, or at least some, distinctly lobed or compound
4. Leaves and stems with scattered hairs	H. brachysiphonius 1.
4. Leaves and stems velvety-tomentose	H. solanifolius 3.
3. Leaves, undivided, toothed	H. krichauffianus 2.
1. Epicalyx segments connate for about half their length, the lobes broad	H. sturtii 4.

Author: Not yet available