Carnegiea gigantea, Giant Saguaro

Southwest Desert Flora

Home to the plants of the Sonoran, Chihuahuan and Mojave Deserts

Cirsium ochrocentrum, Yellowspine Thistle

Malvaceae, Globe Mallow or Mallow Family

The Malvaceae Family is a major family known as the mallows and commonly called Globe Mallows or the Mallow Family.

Important species include the popular cultivated Hibiscus plants with its bright green leaves and beautiful flowers in a multitude of colors. Other important species include Cotton, Okra and Cacao.

Leaves in this family are mostly alternate and palmately lobed. Leaf margins are entire or dentate. Dentate leaves characteristically have veins that end at the tip of each tooth. These teeth are then referred to as malvoid teeth. pubescence is common and characteristically star-shaped or stellate.

Fruits are capsules, schizocarps or nuts.

Flowers typically from axillary inflorescences and mostly reduced to a solitary flower; flowers are bisexual or unisexual and mostly actinomorphic.

North America, the family has 49 genera and 429 accepted taxa overall. World-wide The Plant List includes 245 genera with 4,465 accepted species names and includes a further 1,802 scientific plant names of infraspecific rank for the family. All data is approximate and subject to taxonomic changes.

References: Updated 11/09/2105, updated 02/23/2017, updated 04/14/2017
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service on-line database and USGS ITIS search - (accessed 04/14/2017)
https://plants.usda.gov/java/ClassificationServlet?source=display&classid=Malvaceae
The Plant List (2013). Version 1.1. Published on the Internet; http://www.theplantlist.org/ (accessed 04/14/2017).
http://www.theplantlist.org/1.1/browse/A/Malvaceae/
Wikipedia contributors, 'Malvaceae', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 March 2017, 12:07 UTC,
[accessed 14 April 2017]]