Authority:

Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

Family:

Malvaceae

Description:

Genus Description - Perennial herbs or subshrubs, erect or prostrate, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes viscid. Leaves petiolate to subsessile; blades ovate (sometimes lobed), elliptic, rhombic, or linear, the margin usually dentate. Rowers solitary in the leaf axils, in axillary glomerules, or in dense or open terminal inflorescences; involucel absent; calyx 5-lobed, often 10-ribbed at base and angularly plicate in bud; corolla white, yellow, orangish, rose, or purple, sometimes with a dark red center; androecium included, usually pallid, bearing anthers at apex; styles 5-14, the stigmas capitate. Fruit schizocarpic, glabrous or pubescent; mericarps 5-14, usually indurate, usually laterally reticulate, basally indehiscent with well-differentiated dorsal wall, apically more or less dehiscent with 2 more or less differentiated spines or muticous; seeds solitary, glabrous.

Distribution and Ecology - A genus of ca. 150 species from the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia.