Anisodontea malvastroides (Baker F.) D.M.Bates

Shrubs, probably less than 1 m tall; densely but closely yellowish-pubescent with some glandular but principally stellate hairs, these sessile or short-stalked, the arms mostly 10-20, radiate, from less than 0.2 mm long to ca. 0.75 mm long. Leaf blades yellowish-green, thickish, ovate in outline, up to 3-3.5 cm long x 2.2-3 cm broad, moderately to deeply 3-or 5-lobed, the terminal lobe mostly 1.5-2 times the length of the laterals, narrowly oblong-ovate or-obovate, sometimes slightly pinnate-lobulate, rounded or acute apically with plane or moderately crisped, crenate to dentate-serrate margins, the lateral lobes of similar shape, the ventral surface rugose; stipules 1.5-5 mm long, narrow-ovate to subulate. Flowering branches leafy to the apex, the flowers solitary or sometimes 2 in the upper leaf axils, usually exceeded by the subtending leaf, the pedicels 0.5-2 cm long, apparently not functionally articulated. Involucral bracts 3, distinct, free from calyx, linear to narrowly ovate, sometimes slightly keeled, 3-8 mm long, up to 1(-1.5) mm broad, mostly one-half to two-thirds the length of the calyx. Calyx slightly angled in bud, open-campanulate at anthesis, 7-13 mm long, scarcely accrescent; lobes oblong-lanceolate, long-acute or acuminate, 5-9 mm long, 2.2-3(-4) mm broad, generally twice or more as long as the tube. Corolla apparently open-campanulate, the petals probably pale to deep reddish-mauve with darker veins, 1-1.8 cm long, up to 1.2 cm broad, obovate, narrowed below, with straight sides, to a broad, biauriculate, marginally bearded but otherwise glabrous or puberulent base, the apex slightly oblique, shallowly and broadly emarginate. Staminal column more or less included, 6-9 mm long, apparently magenta apically, open-stellate from above the base to the lowermost filaments, the filaments to ca. 2 mm long, arising over the upper 2-3.5 mm of the column; anthers 77-102 in an ellipsoid cluster. Style branches sparsely hirsute; stigmas obliquely capitate. Fruit nearly exceeding the calyx, broadly ovoid, shallowly concave apically, densely stellate-pubescent; carpels 10-14, up to 7 mm long, 3.5 mm broad, oblong but dorsoventrally constricted centrally, the lateral walls smooth except in the lower 1.5-2.5 mm, where moderately reticulate-veined but without transparent areolae, the veins thickened and prominent around the dorsolateral and basilateral edge, the locule divided into two cells by a laterally expanded, keeled endoglossum arising from the center of the dorsal wall, each cell uniovulate, the upper cell loculicidally dehiscent, the hair stalks around the apical suture often expanded dorsoventrally, compressed laterally, and thus forming minute projections, the lower cell with subpendulous ovule, indehiscent; midvein retaining the carpels at maturity. Seeds mostly 2 in each carpel, 2-2.3 mm long, ca. 1.7 mm broad, the upper slightly smaller than the lower, reddish-black, minutely muricate, puberulent.