font settings and languages

Font Size: Large | Normal | Small
Font Face: Verdana | Geneva | Georgia
Languages:

Abutilon sandwicense

(Greenflower Indian Mallow)

Overview

[ Back to top ]

Critically Endangered
Threat status

Common Names

[ Back to top ]

Common Names in English:

Greenflower Indian Mallow

Description

[ Back to top ]

Family Malvaceae

Herbs, shrubs , or less often trees ; indumentum usually with peltate scales or stellate hairs . Leaves alternate, stipulate , petiolate ; leaf blade usually palmately veined, entire or various lobed . Flowers solitary, less often in small cymes or clusters , axillary or subterminal , often aggregated into terminal racemes or panicles, usually conspicuous , actinomorphic , usually bisexual (unisexual in Kydia) . Epicalyx often present, forming an involucre around calyx, 3- to many lobed. Sepals 5, valvate , free or connate . Petals 5, free, contorted, or imbricate, basally adnate to base of filament tube . Stamens usually very many, filaments connate into tube; anthers 1-celled. Pollen spiny . Ovary superior, with 2-25 carpels, often separating from one another and from axis; ovules 1 to many per locule; style as many or 2 × as many as pistils, apex branched or capitate. Fruit a loculicidal capsule or a schizocarp, separating into individual mericarps, rarely berrylike when mature (Malvaviscus) ; carpels sometimes with an endoglossum (a crosswise projection from back wall of carpel to make it almost completely septate . Seeds often reniform , glabrous or hairy , sometimes conspicuously so.

About 100 genera and ca. 1000 species: tropical and temperate regions of N and S Hemisphere; 19 genera (four introduced ) and 81 species (24 endemic, 16 introduced) in China.

Molecular studies have shown that the members of the Bombacaceae, Malvaceae, Sterculiaceae, and Tiliaceae form a very well-defined monophyletic group that is divided into ten also rather well-defined clades, only two of which correspond to the traditional families Bombacaceae and Malvaceae. Some of the remaining groups are included entirely within either of the remaining families but others cut across the traditional divide between the Sterculiaceae and Tiliaceae. A majority of authors , most notably Bayer and Kubitzki (Fam. Gen. Vasc. Pl. 5: 225-311. 2003), has favored including everything within a greatly enlarged Malvaceae, and treating the individual clades as subfamilies. The alternative view is that the individual clades should be treated as a series of ten families: Bombacaceae (Bombacoideae), Brownlowiaceae (Brownlowioideae), Byttneriaceae (Byttnerioideae), Durionaceae (Durionoideae), Helicteraceae (Helicteroideae), Malvaceae (Malvoideae), Pentapetaceae (Dombeyoideae), Sparrmanniaceae (Grewioideae), Sterculiaceae (Sterculioideae), and Tiliaceae (Tilioideae) (Cheek in Heywood et al. , Fl. Pl. Fam. World. 201-202. 2007) . For the present treatment, we prefer to retain the familiar, traditional four families, so as to maintain continuity with the treatments in FRPS, and to await a consensus on the two alternative strategies for dealing with the very widely accepted clades.

The traditional Malvaceae coincides exactly with one of the major clades. The only possible problem is the relationship with the Bombacaceae, which also has primarily 1-loculed anthers, and some authorities have suggested that the Bombacaceae should be included within the Malvaceae.

Members of the Malvaceae are important as fiber crops (particularly cotton, Gossypium) . Young leaves of many species can be used as vegetables, and species of Abelmoschus and Hibiscus are grown as minor food crops. Many species have attractive flowers and an ever-increasing selection is grown as ornamentals . Several have been cultivated for a very long time, particularly species of Hibiscus, and some of these are not known in the wild.[1]

Genus Abutilon

Herbs, subshrubs , shrubs , or small trees . Stipules usually caducous ; leaf blade usually entire (lobed in A. pictum), palmately veined, base cordate, margin crenate or serrate. Flowers axillary or subterminal , solitary, paired or in small cymes, often aggregated into terminal panicles. Epicalyx absent. Calyx campanulate , lobes 5. Corolla mostly yellow or orange (red in A. roseum), often with dark center, campanulate to wheel-shaped, rarely ± tubular (A. pictum) ; petals 5, basally connate and adnate to filament tube . Anthers many, clustered at filament tube apex. Ovary (5-) 7-20-loculed; ovules 2-9 per carpel; style branches as many as carpels. Fruit a schizocarp, often blackish when mature , subglobose to hemispherical; mericarps (5-) 7-20, eventually dehiscent , apex rounded or acute, sometimes 2-awned, pericarp leathery. Seeds reniform , glabrous or slightly pubescent .

About 200 species: mostly in tropics and subtropics; nine species (three endemic, one introduced ) in China.

Several species have become widespread tropical weeds . One species, Abutilon pictum, is widely grown as an ornamental .[2]

Physical Description

Flowers: Flower Color: pale green

Habitat

Ecology: A perennial shrub up to 6 m. tall, found on steep slopes in dry forest .[3]


List of Habitats :1.5Forest - Subtropical/Tropical Dry 3.5Shrubland - Subtropical/Tropical Dry

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

Unambiguous Synonyms

  1. Abutilon sandwicense var. welchii Christoph.

Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name . Latest taxonomic scrutiny: 15-Mar-2000

Place of publication : Occas. Pap. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Mus. 10(15):4. 1934

Name verified on 19-Apr-1994 by ARS Systematic Botanists. Last updated: 28-Mar-2008

Similar Species

[ Back to top ]

Members of the genus Abutilon

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 692 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus. Here are just 100 of them:

A. - · A. abutiloides (American Indian-Mallow) · A. abutilon · A. acerifolium · A. affine · A. agnesae · A. albescens · A. albidum · A. album · A. alii · A. 'Alpha Glory' · A. ambiguum · A. americanum · A. 'Amiti' · A. amoenum · A. amplexifolium · A. amplissimum · A. amplum · A. 'Amsterdam' · A. anderssonianum · A. andrewsianum · A. andrieuxii · A. anglosomaliae · A. angulatum · A. angulatum var. macrophyllum · A. anodoides · A. 'Apollo' (Chinese Bell Flower) · A. appendiculatum · A. 'Apricot' (Flowering Maple) · A. 'Apricot Belle' · A. 'Apricot Glow' · A. arborescens · A. arboreum · A. arenarium · A. arequipense · A. aristulosum · A. arnottianum · A. 'Ashford Red' (Flowering Maple) · A. asiaticum (Asian Indian Mallow) · A. asiaticum var. albescens · A. asiaticum var. australiense · A. asiaticum var. subasperum · A. asiaticum var. supraviride · A. asperifolium · A. atropurpureum · A. attenuatum · A. aurantiacum · A. aureum · A. auritum (Asian Indian Mallow) · A. australe · A. australe var. malvifolium · A. austroafricanum · A. avicennae · A. avicennae var. chinense · A. 'Baby Orange' (Flowering Maple) · A. badium · A. bakeranum · A. bakeri · A. bakerianum · A. balansae · A. 'Ballerina' · A. barrancae · A. 'Bartley Schwartz' (Chinese Bell Flower) · A. bastardioides · A. bathiei · A. bedfordianum · A. bedfordianum discolor · A. bedfordianum subsp. concolor · A. bedfordianum subsp. discolor · A. behrianum · A. 'Bella Coral' (Flowering Maple) · A. 'Bella Pink' (Flowering Maple) · A. 'Bella Salmon Shades' · A. 'Bella Select Mix' (Flowering Maple) · A. Bella Series · A. 'Bella Vanilla' (Flowering Maple) · A. benadirense · A. 'Benary's Giant' · A. benedictum · A. benense · A. berlandieri (Berlandier's Indian Mallow) · A. 'Bessie Schulson' · A. betschuanicum · A. bicolor · A. bidentatum · A. bidentatum var. forrestii · A. blandum · A. blepharocarpum · A. 'Bloomsbury Can-can' · A. 'Bloomsbury Rose' · A. 'Boule de Neige' · A. bracteosum · A. braunii · A. brenesii · A. bridgesii · A. buchii · A. burandtii · A. bussei · A. cabrae · A. caldemni

More Info

[ Back to top ]

Further Reading

[ Back to top ]

Notes

[ Back to top ]

Contributors

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal February 02, 2008:

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Ya Tang, Michael G. Gilbert & Laurence J. Dorr "Malvaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 12 Page 240, 264,299, 302. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
  2. "Abutilon". in Flora of China Vol. 12 Page 265, 275. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
  3. Bruegmann, M.M. & Caraway, V. 2003. In IUCN 2008. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCNRedList.org. Downloaded July 19, 2008. [back]
Last Revised: 7/2/2009