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• Physical Description
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Taxonomy

Physical Description

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 x:

When placed before a specific epithet, indicates the taxon is of known hybrid origin. The basic number of chromosomes in a polyploid series.

Similar Species

Members of the genus x:

There are approximately 328 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus. Here are just 100 of them: x. Ackersteinia dodsonii · x. Aeonichryson aizoides · x. Aeoniogreenovia lambii · x. Aglaonaria robertsii · x. Agroelymus adamsii · x. Agroelymus bergrothii · x. Agroelymus bowdenii · x. Agroelymus cayouetteorum · x. Agroelymus colvillensis · x. Agroelymus dorei · x. Agroelymus hirtiflorus · x. Agroelymus hodgsonii · x. Agroelymus hultenii · x. Agroelymus jamesensis · x. Agroelymus mossii · x. Agroelymus ontariensis · x. Agroelymus palmerensis · x. Agroelymus pamiricus · x. Agroelymus piettei · x. Agroelymus strictus · x. Agroelymus turneri · x. Agroelymus ungavensis · x. Alcalthaea suffrutescens · x. aleuticus (Aleutian Wildrye) · x. Alismodorus muretii · x. Amarcrinum memoria-corsii (Amarcrinum) · x. Amarine tubergenii · x. Amarygia bidwellii · x. Amarygia parkeri · x. Anacamptorchis duquesnei · x. Anacamptorchis durandii · x. Anacamptorchis fallax. · x. Anacamptorchis guetroti · x. Anacamptorchis kelleri · x. Anacamptorchis klingei · x. Anacamptorchis la-niccae · x. Anacamptorchis laniccae · x. Anacamptorchis laniccae nothosubsp. galloprovinciana · x. Anacamptorchis larzacensis · x. Anacamptorchis lesbiensis · x. Anacamptorchis simorrensis · x. Anacamptorchis simorrensis nothovar. ticinensis · x. Anacamptorchis ticinensis · x. Anacamptorchis vanlookenii · x. Anacamptorchis weberi · x. Anoectomaria dominii · x. Aporberocereus innesii · x. arcuatum (Arcuate Barley) · x. aristatus (Purple Wildrye) · x. Asplenicystopteris blindii · x. Asplenicystopteris payotii · x. Asplenoceterach badense · x. Asplenoceterach barrancense · x. Asplenoceterach newmanii · x. Asplenophyllitis claphamii · x. Asplenophyllitis confluens · x. Asplenophyllitis hendersonii · x. Asplenophyllitis jacksonii · x. Asplenophyllitis kummerlei · x. Asplenophyllitis lobata · x. Asplenophyllitis microdon · x. Asplenosorus akaishiensis · x. Asplenosorus boydstoniae · x. Asplenosorus castaneoviridis · x. Asplenosorus ebenoides · x. Asplenosorus gravesii · x. Asplenosorus herb-wagneri · x. Asplenosorus inex.pectatus · x. Asplenosorus kentuckiensis · x. Asplenosorus kitazawae · x. Asplenosorus pinnatifidus · x. Asplenosorus shawneensis · x. Asplenosorus tosaensis · x. Asplenosorus trudellii · x. Astroworthia bicarinata · x. Astroworthia bicarinata nm. skinneri · x. Astroworthia skinneri · x. Attabignya minarum · x. Bolboschoenoplectus mariqueter · x. Bonstedtia lilacina · x. Bonstedtia youngiana · x. Borkersia soniae · x. Brachystemon nolae-carriae · x. braunii (Braun's Festulolium) · x. Brunsdonna parkeri · x. Brunserine tubergenii · x. Butyagrus nabonnandii · x. caduca (Mandan Ricegrass) · x. Calicharis butcheri · x. Carapelia tarantuloides · x. carduus font-queri · x. Carruanthophyllum hybridum · x. carthamus battandieri · x. carthamus doumerguei · x. carthamus faurei · x. centaurea bourlieri · x. centaurea impura · x. centaurea serresii · x. Ceterophyllitis hybrida · x. Chamaebivia francescae

Bibliography

• Feng Kuo-mei. 1984. Malvaceae. In: Feng Kuo-mei, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 49(2): 1-102.

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Notes

Identifiers:

• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 3891583

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.