Lavatera L.

Annual or perennial herbs or large shrubs, simple or stellate- hairy. Leaves palmately lobed or angular; stipules usually foliaceous, persistent. Flowers solitary, axillary or in terminal racemes. Epicalyx segments 3 - 6, connate at base. Calyx 5-lobed, Petals 5, usually emarginate. Staminal column branched at apex. Carpels 6-many; ovary many-loculed, ovules 1 in each locule; styles filiform, as many as carpels. Schizocarp with mericarps arranged in a depressed circle around a conical or dilated axis, finally separating, indehiscent. Seeds reniform, ascending.

Mediterranean region, Canary Islands, C. Asia, Russia, N.W. America, N.W. Himalayas and Australia, ca 45 species; one in India.

List of Lower Taxa