PLANT: Subshrubs or shrubs, less often trees, rarely herbs, often stellate-pubescent.

LEAVES: alternate, simple or palmately lobed, usually ovate or lanceolate.

FLOWERS: (in ours) perfect and actinomorphic; sepals and petals 5 (or calyx gamosepalous and 5-toothed or -lobed); stamens monadelphous and usually numerous; ovary superior, 3-35-carpelled, with 1-35 styles.

INFLORESCENCE: panicles or racemes, rarely heads or umbels, or the flowers often solitary in the leafaxils.

FRUIT: schizocarpic or capsular.

NOTES: Over 100 genera, perhaps 2000 species, chiefly of tropical and subtropical regions, but with a few temperate-zone genera. The family is well known for the economically important cotton crop (Gossypium spp.) and for numerous ornamentals, especially in Hibiscus and Alcea. Fryxell, P. A. 1988. Syst. Bot. Monogr. 25:1-522.

REFERENCES: Fryxell, Paul A. 1994. Malvaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27(2), 222-236.