April comment thread

For general comments and questions related to Malvaceae from anyone.

Hibiscus diversity

It is not clear what the appropriate bounds for the genus Hibiscus are, Bernard Pfeil and coworkers having found that several genera (including the large genus Pavonia) are nested within Hibiscus, and Margaret Koopman having found that a clade consisting of some Malagasy species of Hibiscus and some endemic Malagasy genera is the sister group to the rest of Hibiscus and its embedded genera. However, I have been building a list of Malvaceae species of the world, and my tally for Hibiscus, under the Kubitzki and Bayer circumscription (I'm approproaching the point of grasping a couple of nettles and sinking Symphochlamys and Macrostelia), has reached approximately 400 species, which exceeds the figures usually given in the literature (300 is the upper bound of the numbers I've seen). This would make Hibiscus comfortably the largest genus in the family, well ahead of Abutilon, Sida, Pavonia and Sterculia. For individual sections I now have a tally of 79 species for Bombicella, and 107 for Furcaria (estimates of species diversity for this section run up to 150 species). No other section has nearly as many species as these, but between them all, and the nearly 100 species for which I haven't seen sectional affiliations the total of 400 is reached. I've written up short web pages on sections Bombicella and Lilibiscus

New web page

Paradombeya Notes, covering two species of dombeyoid plants from China and SE Asia.

Intergeneric hybrids in Malvaceae

I've put together a page outlining what I know about intergeneric hybrids in Malvaceae.

October comment thread

For general comments and questions related to Malvaceae from anyone.

Alcea pallida

Over the years I've attempted to grow from seed various hollyhocks, including Alcea pallida, other than forms of the common Alcea rosea, but generally without success in keeping the plants until they reached flowering size. (I have a plant of "kurdica" currently flowering.)

However, yesterday, in a garden centre I came across a few plants labelled as Alcea pallida. (As they looked nearly dead I didn't buy any.) The flowers are quite distinct from Alcea rosea; they are markedly smaller, and the petals are narrow (non-overlapping) and distinctly bilobed.

August comment thread

For general comments and questions related to Malvaceae from anyone.

May comment thread

For general comments and questions related to Malvaceae from anyone.

Propagation - seed sowing

What with the cool spring I've been rather tardy in sowing seed this year, but I've got round to sowing 15 batches of Eumalvas.

1) Malva australiana, of a strain originally collected in New South Wales
2) Malva australiana, of a strain originally collected in Western Australia, or at least sold by a West Australian seed company.
3) Malva pusilla, of a strain originally collected in Champaign, Illinois
4) Malva parviflora, of a strain originally collected in Victoria, Australia
5) Malva nicaeensis
6) Malva nicaeensis (a pale flowered form)
7) Malva sylvestris Hinsley 53 [1] x linnaei Davis s.n. (strain Brythone)
8) Malva sylvestris Hinsley 53 [1] x linnaei Davis s.n. (strain P/1)
9) Malva arborea [3] 'Variegata' x australiana
10) Malva arborea 'Variegata' x durieui
11) Malva arborea 'Variegata' x linnaei Davis s.n. (strain P/3)
12) Malva arborea Davis s.n. [2] x sylvestris Hinsley 60 [4]
13) Malva sylvestris 'Mystic Merlin' x durieui
14) Malva sylvestris 'Mystic Merlin' x durieui
15) Malva sylvestris 'Mystic Merlin' x durieui

Numbers 7-9 and 13-15 are old batches of seed from which hybrid plants have been successfully raised in past years. Numbers 9-12 are seed from last year's attempts to produce hybrids and may turn out to be just Malva arborea - while Malva arborea is not mechanically self-compatible in the way the small-flowered speciesa are, previous attempts to produce hybrids using this as the seed parent have produced Malva arborea.

[1] Hinsley 53 was a small-flowered, nearly male-sterile, selection of Malva sylvestris 'Mystic Merlin'.
[2] collected in Cornwall
[3] better known as Lavatera arborea
[4] Hinsley 60 is a hybrid between a wild-collection (Hinsley 3), and a cultivated form thought to be 'Bibor Felho'.

April Comment Thread

For general comments and questions related to Malvaceae from anyone.