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Herbs shrubs or trees, with (usually) tough fibrous inner bark, alternate stipulate leaves, and stellate hairs. Flowers usually hermaphrodite, regular and large. — Calyx 5-lobed, lobes valvate. Petals 5, hypogynous, usually connate at the base, adnate to the staminal tube, imbricate. Disk 0 or a small torus. Stamens very numerous, their filaments united into a tube; anthers often reniform, 1-celled. Ovary of 1 or more free or connate 1- or many-ovuled carpels, whorled round and adnate with the torus; styles as many as carpels, connate below, filiform above. Fruit of one or more indehiscent or 2-valved cocci, or capsular. Seeds often hairy; albumen little or none; cotyledons large, folded.
A very large Order, abundant both in the tropics and temperate zones, to which the Mallow, Lavatera, Hollyhock, Cotton, and many other well-known cultivated New Zealand garden plants belong.
| Bracts 0 or small. Stigmas longitudinal. Ovules solitary … | 1. PLAGIANTHUS [1] |
| Bracts 0 or small. Stigmas capitate, Ovules solitary … | 2. HOHERIA [1] |
| Bracts large. Stigmas capitate. Ovules 2 to many … | 3. HIBISCUS |
[1] The modern circumscriptions of Plagianthus and Hoheria differ that used in this work. P. lyallii has been transferred to Hoheria. Furthermore, in some 19th century works, Australian species now assigned to Lawrencia, Asterotrichion and Gynatrix were often placed in Plagianthus. Hence the diagnoses given for these genera may not be applicable to the modern conceptions of Plagianthus and Hoheria.
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