font settings and languages

Font Size: Large | Normal | Small
Font Face: Verdana | Geneva | Georgia
Languages:

Althaea cannabina

(Palm-Leaf Marsh-Mallow)

Common Names

[ Back to top ]

Common Names in English:

Hemp-Leaf-Mallow, Hemp-Leaved Hollyhock, Palm-Leaf Marsh-Mallow, Palm-Leaf Marshmallow, Palmleaf Marshmallow

Description

[ Back to top ]

Family Malvaceae

Herbs, shrubs , or less often trees ; indumentum usually with peltate scales or stellate hairs . Leaves alternate, stipulate , petiolate ; leaf blade usually palmately veined, entire or various lobed . Flowers solitary, less often in small cymes or clusters , axillary or subterminal , often aggregated into terminal racemes or panicles, usually conspicuous , actinomorphic , usually bisexual (unisexual in Kydia) . Epicalyx often present, forming an involucre around calyx, 3- to many lobed. Sepals 5, valvate , free or connate . Petals 5, free, contorted, or imbricate, basally adnate to base of filament tube . Stamens usually very many, filaments connate into tube; anthers 1-celled. Pollen spiny . Ovary superior, with 2-25 carpels, often separating from one another and from axis; ovules 1 to many per locule; style as many or 2 × as many as pistils, apex branched or capitate. Fruit a loculicidal capsule or a schizocarp, separating into individual mericarps, rarely berrylike when mature (Malvaviscus) ; carpels sometimes with an endoglossum (a crosswise projection from back wall of carpel to make it almost completely septate . Seeds often reniform , glabrous or hairy , sometimes conspicuously so.

About 100 genera and ca. 1000 species: tropical and temperate regions of N and S Hemisphere; 19 genera (four introduced ) and 81 species (24 endemic, 16 introduced) in China.

Molecular studies have shown that the members of the Bombacaceae, Malvaceae, Sterculiaceae, and Tiliaceae form a very well-defined monophyletic group that is divided into ten also rather well-defined clades, only two of which correspond to the traditional families Bombacaceae and Malvaceae. Some of the remaining groups are included entirely within either of the remaining families but others cut across the traditional divide between the Sterculiaceae and Tiliaceae. A majority of authors , most notably Bayer and Kubitzki (Fam. Gen. Vasc. Pl. 5: 225-311. 2003), has favored including everything within a greatly enlarged Malvaceae, and treating the individual clades as subfamilies. The alternative view is that the individual clades should be treated as a series of ten families: Bombacaceae (Bombacoideae), Brownlowiaceae (Brownlowioideae), Byttneriaceae (Byttnerioideae), Durionaceae (Durionoideae), Helicteraceae (Helicteroideae), Malvaceae (Malvoideae), Pentapetaceae (Dombeyoideae), Sparrmanniaceae (Grewioideae), Sterculiaceae (Sterculioideae), and Tiliaceae (Tilioideae) (Cheek in Heywood et al. , Fl. Pl. Fam. World. 201-202. 2007) . For the present treatment, we prefer to retain the familiar, traditional four families, so as to maintain continuity with the treatments in FRPS, and to await a consensus on the two alternative strategies for dealing with the very widely accepted clades.

The traditional Malvaceae coincides exactly with one of the major clades. The only possible problem is the relationship with the Bombacaceae, which also has primarily 1-loculed anthers, and some authorities have suggested that the Bombacaceae should be included within the Malvaceae.

Members of the Malvaceae are important as fiber crops (particularly cotton, Gossypium) . Young leaves of many species can be used as vegetables, and species of Abelmoschus and Hibiscus are grown as minor food crops. Many species have attractive flowers and an ever-increasing selection is grown as ornamentals . Several have been cultivated for a very long time, particularly species of Hibiscus, and some of these are not known in the wild.[1]

Genus Althaea

Herbs annual to perennial , erect , stellate hirsute . Leaves simple ; stipules subulate ; leaf blade ovate-triangular or palmately 3-5-lobed or -parted. Flowers axillary , solitary or fascicled, sometimes grouped into terminal racemes . Epicalyx lobes 9, cup-shaped, connate basally, stellate hirsute. Calyx cup-shaped, 5-parted. Corolla lavender or pink, funnel-shaped; petals obovate , less than 2 cm, apex shallowly notched . Staminal column cylindric , pubescent ; anthers grouped at apex, brownish purple. Ovary 8-25-loculed; ovules 1 per locule, erect; style branches as many as locules; stigma linear , decurrent. Fruit a schizocarp, oblate or disk-shaped, axis disk-shaped, not longer than carpels; mericarps 8-25, semicircular, abaxially channeled , 1-celled and 1-seeded.

About 12 species: C and SW Asia, Europe; one species in China.[2]

Physical Description

Flowers: Bloom Period: June, July, August. • Flower Color: near white, pink, white

Size/Age/Growth

Size: 36-48" tall.

Habitat

Typically found at an altitude of 0 to 1,245 meters (0 to 4,085 feet).[3]

Biology

[ Back to top ]

Growth

Culture: Space 18-24" apart.

Soil: Minimum pH: 6.1 • Maximum pH: 7.8

Sunlight: Sun Exposure: Sun to Partial Shade.

Temperature: Cold Hardiness: 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6a, 6b, 7a, 7b, 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b. (map)

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name . Latest taxonomic scrutiny: 17-Oct-2001

Place of publication : Sp. pl. 2:686. 1753

Name verified on 25-Jul-1995 by ARS Systematic Botanists. Last updated: 25-Jul-1995

Similar Species

[ Back to top ]

Members of the genus Althaea

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 135 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus. Here are just 100 of them:

A. acaulis · A. acerifolia · A. aegyptiaca · A. africana · A. agrigentina · A. ambigua · A. angulata · A. apterocarpa · A. arbelensis · A. arborea (Tree Sea Mallow) · A. armeniaca · A. assurgentiflora (Island-Mallow) · A. assurgentifolia · A. atropurpurea · A. aucheri · A. australis · A. baldschuanica · A. balearica · A. bertolae · A. bertrami · A. biennis · A. 'Black Prince' · A. borbonica · A. bordzilowskii · A. borealis · A. broussonetiifolia · A. burchellii · A. calverti · A. canabina · A. cannabina (Palm-Leaf Marsh-Mallow) · A. caribaea · A. chinensis · A. chrysantha · A. coromandelina · A. corymbosa · A. cretica · A. crispa · A. damascena · A. danubialis · A. denudata · A. digitata · A. dissecta · A. ficifolia · A. flava · A. flavo-virens · A. flexuosa · A. froloviana · A. frutex · A. gariepina · A. garipensis · A. glabrata · A. glabriflora · A. godroni · A. gorganica · A. grandiflora · A. haussknechtii · A. heldreichii · A. hiri · A. hirsuta (Hairy Marsh-Mallow) · A. hispida · A. hohenackeri · A. hyrcana · A. indica · A. insularis · A. irolowiana · A. karakalensis · A. kashmiriana · A. keredjensis · A. kirrindensis · A. kotschyi · A. kragujevacensis · A. kurdica · A. kusariensis · A. laevis · A. lavateraeflora · A. laxiflora · A. leiocarpa · A. lilacina · A. litwinowi · A. loftusii · A. longiflora · A. ludwigii · A. lusitanica · A. macroclada · A. mareotica · A. maritima · A. mauritiana · A. meonantha · A. mexicana · A. micrantha · A. microcarpa · A. microchiton · A. microphylla · A. minoricensis · A. multiflora · A. mutica · A. narbonensis · A. narbonnensis · A. nicaeensis · A. nudiflora

More Info

[ Back to top ]

Further Reading

[ Back to top ]

Notes

[ Back to top ]

Contributors

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal November 11, 2007:

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Ya Tang, Michael G. Gilbert & Laurence J. Dorr "Malvaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 12 Page 240, 264,299, 302. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
  2. Ya Tang, Michael G. Gilbert & Laurence J. Dorr "Althaea". in Flora of China Vol. 12 Page 265, 268. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
  3. Mean = 527.000 meters (1,729.003 feet), Standard Deviation = 346.940 based on 61 observations. Altitude information for each observation from British Oceanographic Data Centre. [back]
Last Revised: 7/2/2009