Fremontodendron californicum

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: FREMONTIA, FLANNELBUSH
Habit: Shrub, small tree; densely stellate-hairy; evergreen. Stem: decumbent to erect, < 7 m; inner bark gelatinous. Leaf: often on spur, +- ovate, generally with 3 main, few to many 2° lobes, otherwise entire; hairs generally denser abaxially, white and/or brown; stipules generally +- 2 mm or +- 4--4.5(9) mm. Inflorescence: flowers generally 1 opposite leaf or on spur; bractlets generally 3. Flower: (23)30--84 mm wide; petals 0; sepals spreading, widely ovate to +- round, showy, tips awned or not, adaxially pitted between raised, hard, fused basal margins, pits puberulent, long hairs on margins present or 0; filament tube +- = ovary, < style, fleshy; ovary (and fruit) sessile. Fruit: capsule, loculicidal, 5-valved, 2--4 cm, acute-ovoid, bristly, partly enclosed by dried calyx, chambers 2--3-seeded. Seed: 3.5--5.5 mm, ovoid, dull brown to shiny black.
Etymology: (John C. Frémont, explorer in western America, 1813--1890)
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert E. Preston, R. David Whetstone & T.A. Atkinson
Reference: Kelman et al. 2006 Madroño 53:380--387