Common Name: MALLOW FAMILY
Habit: Annual to tree; generally with stellate hairs, often with bristles or peltate scales; juice generally mucilage-like; bark fibrous. Leaf: generally cauline, alternate, petioled, simple [palmate-compound], generally palmate-lobed and/or veined, generally toothed, evergreen or not; stipules persistent or not. Inflorescence: head, spike, raceme, or panicle, in panicle or not (a compound panicle), or flowers >= 1 in leaf axils, or flowers generally 1 opposite a leaf or on a spur; bracts leaf-like or not; bractlets 0 or on flowering stalks, often closely subtending calyx, generally in involucel. Flower: generally bisexual, radial; sepals 5, generally fused at base, abutting in bud, larger in fruit or not, nectaries as tufts of glandular hairs at base; petals (0)5, free from each other but generally fused at base to, falling with filament tube, clawed or not; stamens 5--many, filaments fused for most of length into tube around style, staminodes 5, alternate stamens, or generally 0; pistil 1, ovary superior, stalked or generally not, chambers generally >= 5, styles or style branches, stigmas generally 1 or 1--2 × chamber number. Fruit: loculicidal capsule, [berry], or 5--many, disk- or wedge-shaped segments (= mericarps).
Genera In Family: 266 genera, 4025 species: worldwide, especially warm regions; some cultivated (e.g., Abelmoschus okra; Alcea hollyhock; Gossypium cotton; Hibiscus hibiscus). Note: Recently treated to include Bombacaceae, Sterculiaceae, Tiliaceae. Mature fruit needed for identification; "outer edges" are surfaces between sides and back (abaxial surface) of segment. "Flower stalk" used instead of "pedicel," "peduncle," especially where both needed (i.e., when flowers both 1 in leaf axils and otherwise).
eFlora Treatment Author: Steven R. Hill, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Steven R. Hill, Thomas J. Rosatti.

Common Name: GLOBE MALLOW
Habit: Perennial herb [subshrub], stellate-hairy; caudex woody. Stem: generally > 1, 0.6--2 m, branched. Leaf: stipules inconspicuous, persistent or not; blade generally 3--7 lobed, base wedge-shaped, truncate, or cordate. Inflorescence: spike- or raceme-like, flowers 1 in lower leaf axils, 2--5 in upper leaf axils, leaves reduced above; bractlets 3, free, linear to lanceolate, +- persistent. Flower: showy; calyx 5-lobed, divided 1/2, stellate-hairy to +- glabrous; petals 5, pale lavender to rose-purple, pink, or white; filament tube with anthers in upper 1/3--1/2; styles generally 6--15, stigmas generally oblique-squared, often +- elongate. Fruit: generally > calyx; oblong; segments generally 6--15, generally 10--15 mm, 6--10 mm wide, beaked or not, attached to fruit axis by strong fiber, +- dehiscent to base, bristly, sides thin, smooth, glabrous. Seed: generally 2--4 per segment, reniform, glabrous to puberulent.
Etymology: (coined by E.L. Greene, derivation uncertain, perhaps Greek, meaning Trojan; or named after Lake Iliamna in Alaska; or after Illi-nois and Indi-ana, where 1 sp. is endemic)
eFlora Treatment Author: Tracey Slotta
Unabridged Reference: Wiggins 1936 Contr Dudley Herb 1:213--229; Holmgren in Holmgren et al. 2005 Intermountain Flora 2(B):41--42