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(Last Modified On 3/12/2013)
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(Last Modified On 3/12/2013)
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Genus
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MALVASTRUM A. Gray
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PlaceOfPublication
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Mem. Am. Acad. Arts Sci., ser. 2, 4: 21. 1849, nom. gen. conserv.
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Synonym
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Malveopsis Presl, Bot. Bemerk. 18. 1844.
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Description
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Herbs or shrubs, the stems erect, the indumentum of simple or stellate or mal- pighiaceous hairs. Leaves petiolate, the blade serrate to deeply lobed or parted. Flowers axillary, solitary or glomerate, or in terminal, few- to many-flowered in- florescences, the individual flowers short-pedicellate to sessile; epicalyx of 3 distinct, narrow, persistent bractlets; calyx 5-lobed, accrescent and foliaceous in fruit; petals 5, obovate-cuneate, -more or less asymmetrically emarginate at the apex, connate at the base and adnate to the base of the staminal tube, yellow; staminal tube di- vided at the apex into few to numerous filaments, the anthers reniform; ovary of many, free, 1-ovulate carpels, the ovules erect or ascending; style branches isomer- ous with the carpels, filiform, the stigmas capitellate. Fruits discoid, composed of 1 whorl of mericarps, these hippocrepiform, incurved-rostrate to muticous, some- times with 1 apical and 2 dorsal awns, nearly indehiscent; seeds glabrous; endo- sperm scanty; cotyledons plicate.
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Habit
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Herbs shrubs
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Distribution
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A genus of about 12 species of tropical and subtropical America, two of which are now widely distributed in both hemispheres and are the only species in Panama.
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Note
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This genus is here treated from the point of view that M. coromandelianum (L.) Garcke (M. carpinifolium A. Gray) is the type species (cf. Kearney, Leafl. West. Bot. 5: 23-24. 1947 & 7: 238-241. 1955, & Am. Midl. Nat. 46: 119-121. 1951).
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Key
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a. Indumentum strigose, the hairs simple and 4-rayed, the rays approximate in pairs (malpighiaceous); flowers axillary, solitary or in glomerules; mericarps provided at the apex with an erect awn and with 2 short, dorsal awns near the middle 1. M. COROMANDELIANUM aa. Indumentum stellate-tomentellous to stellate-puberulus; flowers in dense, ter- minal spikes; mericarps incurved-rostrate at the apex, unarmed - 2. M. AMERICANUM
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