Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Upland cotton shrubs or annual subshrubs 1–2 m tall, usually stellate pubescent.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades usually wider than long, 8–15 cm wide, cut angulately to about the middle into 3 or 5 lobes, the lobes broadly triangular to ovate, acute to acuminate. Surfaces glabrous or hairy. Margins lobed but otherwise entire. Midvein on lower surface with a basal gland. Petioles present. Stipules present 0.5–2 cm long.

Flowers: Flowers axillary, solitary or in sympodial inflorescence, pedicels 2–4 cm long, with 3 subterminal, unfringed nectaries; involucral bracts3, usually distinct and inserted above nectaries, ovate, usually 30–60 mm long, laciniate, the teeth 3–19, acute to acuminate, separated by basically acute sinuses. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx truncate or 5-toothed, the tube 0.5–0.6 cm long, sepals connate, the lobes valvate in bud. Corolla actinomorphic to moderately zygomorphic, corolla of 5 petals, cream-colored to yellow, usually with a basal maroon spot and fading to pinkish purple, obovate, distinct from each other but adnate at base to staminal column, 3–5 cm long, convolute in bud. Stamens 5 to numerous, monadelphous, forming a staminal column, staminal column included, 5-toothed at apex; antheriferous for most of its length or only in upper 1/2; anthers monothecal. Pollen globose, echinate. Ovary superior, 3-5-celled, the carpels borne in a single whorl or rarely seemingly superposed whorls, placentation axile; ovules several per cell; style exceeding the staminal column, unbranched, clavate; stigma 3-5-lobed, decurrent.

Fruit: Loculicidally dehiscent; usually glabrous capsules; 3–5–celled; globose to broadly ovoid; beaked; 2.5–3.5 cm long; the surface smooth. Seeds 5–11 per cell; lint copious; white to reddish brown; seeds turbinate; with or without endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 26; 36; 38; 39; 52

Habitat: Sparingly naturalized.

Elevation Range: