PLANT: Shrubs or subshrubs, usually stellate-pubescent. LEAVES: (in ours) more or less ovate and simple. FLOWERS: solitary in the leafaxils or in panicles or racemes; involucel absent; calyx 5-lobed; petals usually yellow or yellow-orange; stamens numerous; pistil 5-25-carpelled, with as many styles, the stigmas capitate. FRUIT: schizocarpic, of 5-25 mericarps, these sometimes cohering at maturity to form a pseudocapsular fruit. SEEDS: usually 3 per mericarp. NOTES: ca. 200 spp. from the warmer parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia. (Name of complex origin, probably from the Arabic abu, father of, and Persian tuZa or tuZha, mallow). Fryxell, P. A. 1988. Syst. Bot. Monogr. 25:24-68. REFERENCES: Fryxell, Paul A. 1994. Malvaceae. J. Ariz. – Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27(2), 222-236.