PLANT: Herbs, subshrubs, or shrubs, erect or decumbent, usually stellate-pubescent or sometimes viscid.

LEAVES: more or less ovate, crenate or dentate.

FLOWERS: usually solitary in the leafaxils; involucel absent; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes lanceolate or ovate; petals white. FRUITS schizocarpic, oblate to hemispheric, inflated, pendulous; mericarps 10-14, fragile-walled, pubescent or hispid, 1-3 seeded.

SEEDS: glabrous or scabridulous.

NOTES: A small neotropical genus,with one widespread species (the following); the remaining species include one from the W. Ind., one from Mex., and three or more from S. Amer.; (for L. A. P. Herissant, French physician, naturalist, and poet). Brizicky, G. K. 1968. J. Arnold Arbor. 49:278-279.

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