Malachra capitata L.

• Title

  Malachra capitata L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Malachra capitata (L.) L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Malachra capitata Malvavisco Coarse Yellow Mallow Family Malvaceae Mallow Family Sida capitata Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 685. 1753. Malachra capitata Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, edition 12, 2: 458.1767. A large, yellow-flowered, finely hairy, perennial herb, frequent in fields, waste and cultivated grounds, and along roads, at lower and middle altitudes in Porto Rico, sometimes becoming a weed. It is distributed through the Greater Antilles, some of the Lesser Antilles and from Central America northward to Texas. Malachra (Greek for mallow) is a genus with about 10 species of hairy, perennial herbs, or shrubs, mostly of tropical America, the one here illustrated typical; it was established by Linnaeus in 1767, towards the end of his botanical publications. Their alternate, stalked leaves are toothed, or lobed, their flowers in dense, bracted clusters. The calyx is 5-cleft, or 5-parted, and there are 5, somewhat unequal-sided petals; the stamens are united into a 5-toothed tube shorter than the petals, bearing from 15 to 30 filaments at about its middle; the cavities of the 5-celled ovary each contain 1 ovule, the style is nearly cylindric, the stigmas 10. The fruit consists of 5, convex, reticulated, small carpels. Malachra capitata (flowers in dense, round clusters) is upright, usually branched, 0.6 to 1.5 meters high, finely stellate-hairy, and often with some long, whitish hairs. The broadly ovate, or nearly orbicular, thin leaves, are toothed, or lofted, the lower ones often 12 centimeters long, the upper smaller; the narrow stipules are about 15 millimeters long, or shorter. The flowers are few, or several together in heads, which are mostly axillary, subtended by outer, ovate, strongly nerved, pointed bracts, 2 or 2.5 centimeters long, folded together, heart-shaped at the base, the inner bracts smaller; the calyx is from 6 to 8 millimeters long, with blunt teeth; the yellow petals are about 1 centimeter long. The carpels are 2 or 2.5 millimeters long. There are 4 other Malachras in the Porto Rico Flora.