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: MALLOW
Habit: Annual to shrub, generally taprooted; hairs stellate, simple, or 0. Stem: prostrate to erect, generally not rooting, herbaceous to soft-woody. Leaf: stipules persistent; petioled; blade round to reniform, shallowly to deeply palmate-5--7(9)-lobed or lobes 0, generally crenate to dentate. Inflorescence: raceme-like or generally flowers 1--10 in leaf axils; flowering stalks often jointed above middle; bractlets 3, free or fused +- 1/2. Flower: showy or not; calyx lobes +- = tube; petals +- 0.4--4.5 cm, generally shallowly notched at tip, pink, purple, rose-purple or white, dark-veined or not; anthers generally on upper 1/3--1/2 of filament tube; stigmas linear, on inner side of style branches. Fruit: +- disk-like; segments 6--15[20], indehiscent, generally edged; walls smooth or ribbed, puberulent or not; beak 0. Seed: firmly enclosed by, not readily separating from fruit wall, reniform, generally glabrous.
Etymology: (Greek: malache or malos, mallow, tender) Toxicity: Some species reportedly TOXIC to livestock from selenium or nitrate concentration. Note: Incl 3 California species formerly placed in Lavatera (Hill 2009).
Unabridged Note: Recently treated to include several species of Lavatera based primarily on molecular data (Ray 1995, 1998). Several other widely cultivated species may escape, including Malva alcea L., Malva moschata L.
eFlora Treatment Author: Steven R. Hill
Reference: Ray 1998 Novon 8:288--295
Unabridged Reference: Fryxell 1988 Syst Bot Monogr 255--261; 274--279, incl Lavatera; Ray 1995 Pl Syst Evol 198:29--53; Ray 1998 Novon 8:288--295