Family Malvaceae
Synonyms: Sterculiaceae APNI*
Tiliaceae APNI*
Bombacaceae APNI*
Description: Herbs, shrubs or trees, rarely climbers, usually with stellate hairs, rarely with simple hairs, peltate scales or plants glabrous.
Leaves alternate, simple or palmately compound; margins entire or variously lobed or toothed; venation often 3–5 from base; stipules usually present, sometimes absent or falling early.
Inflorescences axillary, leaf-opposed or terminal, few to many-flowered cymes or panicles, occasionally in terminal spikes, or flowers solitary or paired. Flowers usually actinomorphic, usually bisexual, occasionally unisexual and then plants monoecious or dioecious. Sepals (3–)5, often subtended by an epicalyx of 3 or more segments, free or fused at base, sometimes persistent in fruit; aestivation valvate. Petals 5 (or as many as sepals), free or occasionally fused to the base of the staminal column, sometimes minute and scale-like or absent. Stamens (5–)many; filaments often fused into a column surrounding the style, sometimes free or fused to base of petals, or subsessile on an androgynophore; staminal column sometimes lobed and corona-like at apex; staminodes often present; anthers 1 or 2-locular, dehiscing by longitudinal slits or terminal pores. Ovary usually superior; gynophore sometimes present; carpels (1–)2–many, often 5, free or united; styles free or united, simple or branched; branches usually as many or twice as many as carpels.
Fruit a loculicidal capsule, schizocarp, follicle or rarely a berry or samara. Seeds sometimes winged, pubescent or arillate, endosperm abundant to absent.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 245 genera, 4000-5000 species, cosmopolitan except for very cold regions, most abundant in warm-temp. & tropical regions, especially South America. Australia: 68 genera and c. 760 species, all States but more common in arid, tropical & subtropical regions.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Malvaceae, Order: Malvales)
Wikipedia This broad circumscription of Malvaceae, based on Bayer et al. (1999, includes subfamilies, some of which are accepted as families in Queensland. See Messina, Malvaceae, Flora of Australia Online for further details and subfamilial descriptions. The native species are of minor economic importance; some species of Argyrodendron are used for timber, as is the introduced Tilia. The introduced species Gossypium hirsutum L. (Cotton), Hibiscus cannabinus L. (Kenaf) and Corchorus olitorius (Jute) are commercially important for fibre, and other species are widely cultivated as ornamentals.
Text by A. S. Mitchell & E. H. Norris; updated by K.L. Gibbons, 15 Jun. 2023.
Taxon concept: APG IV; A. Messina, Flora of Australia Online [accessed 14 Jun. 2023]; Bayer et al. (1999). Support for an expanded family concept of Malvaceae within a recircumscribed order Malvales: a combined analysis of plastid atpB and rbcL DNA sequences. Bot. J. Linnean Soc. 129: 267–303.
Taxa not yet included in identification key
Androcalva,
Ceiba,
Corchorus,
Grewia,
Malvaviscus,
Triumfetta
| | Key to the genera | |
| 1 | Fertile stamens >twice as many as sepals (MALVACEAE) | 2 |
| Fertile stamens up to twice as many as sepals (STERCULIACEAE) | 20 |
| 2 | Epicalyx present (falling early in Lagunaria) | 3 |
| Epicalyx absent
Back to 1 | 14 |
| 3 | Epicalyx segments 3 | 4 |
| Epicalyx segments 5 or more
Back to 2 | 9 |
| 4 | Fruit a capsule; shrubs or trees | 5 |
| Fruit a schizocarp (sometimes appearing circumsciss); herbs (stout and erect in Lavatera)
Back to 3 | 6 |
| 5 | Trees or tall shrubs; leaves covered with peltate scales, lacking oil glands; seeds glabrous; capsule covered with fine spicules | Lagunaria |
| Shrubs; leaves more or less glabrous, containing oil glands; seeds usually hairy; capsule without spicules
Back to 4 | Gossypium |
| 6 | Flowers pink, white or bluish lilac; styles stigmatose longitudinally | 7 |
| Flowers yellow, orange or red; styles capitate
Back to 4 | 8 |
| 7 | Epicalyx segments united for most of their length, margins crenate to toothed | Lavatera |
| Epicalyx segments free or united at the base, margins entire
Back to 6 | Malva |
| 8 | Flowers solitary, pedunculate, orange to red; creeping herbs rooting at nodes | Modiola |
| Flowers more or less sessile in spikes or racemes; orange to yellow; erect herbs
Back to 6 | Malvastrum |
| 9 | Fruit a schizocarp | 10 |
| Fruit a capsule
Back to 3 | 12 |
| 10 | Mericarps uniformly covered with spines; shrubs to 3 m high | Urena |
| Mericarps lacking spines; small shrubs or erect annuals to 3 m high
Back to 9 | 11 |
| 11 | Epicalyx segments more than 5, united at base; petals c. 4 cm long, pale pink, white or purple; erect herbs to 3 m high | Alcea |
| Epicalyx segments 5, free; petals c. 1 cm long, reddish purple; spreading shrubs to 1.5 m high
Back to 10 | Pavonia |
| 12 | Calyx spathe-like, splitting on one side at anthesis and falling with corolla after flowering | Abelmoschus |
| Calyx neither spathe-like nor splitting as above, usually persistent after flowering
Back to 9 | 13 |
| 13 | Styles undivided to stigmas; calyx and epicalyx segments dilated at apex; capsule appearing 10-valved at maturity with septicidal dehiscence | Radyera |
| Styles branched to well below stigmas; calyx and epicalyx not dilated at apex; capsule loculicidally 5-valved
Back to 12 | Hibiscus |
| 14 | Flowers pink, blue or purple | 15 |
| Flowers yellow, orange, cream, greenish cream to white or red
Back to 2 | 17 |
| 15 | Fruit a capsule, usually 3–5-valved; leaves not lobed | 16 |
| Fruit a schizocarp with 11–15 mericarps; leaves 3–5-lobed
Back to 14 | Anoda |
| 16 | Capsule less than 1 cm long; petals c. 1 cm long, purple; leaves stellate-hairy | Howittia |
| Capsule 2–3 cm long; petals 3–4 cm long, usually pink, sometimes mauve; leaves covered with peltate scales
Back to 15 | Lagunaria |
| 17 | Styles stigmatose for at least a third of their length; at least some flowers unisexual, flowers white to green or red, rarely yellow and then flowers always unisexual | 18 |
| Styles capitate; all flowers bisexual, yellow or orange
Back to 14 | 19 |
| 18 | Tall shrubs to 3 m; flowers white to cream, more or less sessile or pedicellate in axillary panicles; eastern parts of the State | Gynatrix |
| Erect perennial herbs to 60 cm or spreading shrubs to 1 m; flowers green to white, yellow or red, 1–3 more or less sessile in axils, often forming leafy spikes; western parts of the State
Back to 17 | Lawrencia |
| 19 | Ovules more than 2 in each loculus; mericarps papery, 2-valved, with a narrow back and smooth papery sides | Abutilon |
| Ovules solitary in each loculus; mericarps hard, often indehiscent, with a wide back and honeycombed or reticulate sides
Back to 17 | Sida |
| 20 | Trees or shrubs more than 4 m high | 21 |
| Shrubs less than 4 m high (mostly less than 2 m high) or rarely herbs
Back to 1 | 25 |
| 21 | Leaves palmately 3–9-lobed; fruit a samara | Argyrodendron |
| Leaves simple, margins entire to toothed, or lobed; fruit a capsule or follicle
Back to 20 | 22 |
| 22 | Leaves with petiole more than 20 mm long; margins not toothed; lamina either 3–7-lobed, or unlobed and glabrous or sparsely hairy on lower surface; fruit a follicle, more than 30 mm long | 23 |
| Leaves with petiole less than 20 mm long; margins mostly irregularly toothed and lamina densely hairy on lower surface, mostly unlobed, sometimes obscurely lobed in juvenile shoots; fruit a bristly capsule less than 20 mm long
Back to 21 | 24 |
| 23 | Leaves either 3–7-lobed, or entire and glabrous below; follicles stalked, hairy and yellowish brown inside, after opening seeds embedded along base | Brachychiton |
| Leaves entire and very sparsely stellate-pubescent on lower surface (lens needed); follicles sessile, glabrous and orange inside, after opening seeds attached along upper margins
Back to 22 | Sterculia |
| 24 | Capsules 15–20 mm diam., bristly, bristles covered with soft stellate hairs, carpels not separating in fruiting stage | Commersonia |
| Capsules c. 10 mm diam., tomentose but without bristles, carpels separating in fruit
Back to 22 | Seringia |
| 25 | Herbs; stems prostrate to 30 cm long; hairs glandular and stellate | Gilesia |
| Shrubs; stems mostly erect, sometimes prostrate; hairs stellate but not glandular
Back to 20 | 26 |
| 26 | Epicalyx of 3 persistent subulate bracteoles; petals yellow, c. 10 mm long | Melhania |
| Epicalyx absent; petals not yellow, less than 10 mm long
Back to 25 | 27 |
| 27 | Calyx enlarged in fruit, papery, blue to purplish or white, sparsely or densely pubescent | Seringia |
| Calyx not markedly enlarged in fruit, whitish green to pink to rusty-coloured, tomentose at least on the outside
Back to 26 | 28 |
| 28 | Capsules covered with bristles 2–5 mm long; calyx not prominent in fruit, not enclosing and shorter than the capsule | Commersonia |
| Capsules without bristles; calyx prominent in fruit, longer than and mostly enclosing the capsule
Back to 27 | 29 |
| 29 | Calyx lobes 10–15 mm long, linear-subulate, striate; capsule c. 10 mm diam.; peduncle with 1 or 2 fruits | Hannafordia |
| Calyx lobes usually less than 10 mm long, more or less ovate, rarely oblong; capsule usually less than 5 mm diam.; peduncle mostly with many fruits, rarely 1 or 2
Back to 28 | Lasiopetalum |
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