Anoda Cav.

Scientific Description

Common name. Anodas. Family Malvaceae.

Tribe Malveae.

Habit and leaf form. Herbs (bristly or glabrescent). Plants unarmed. Usually annual, or perennial (sometimes slightly woody perennials); to 0.1–0.8 m high. Mesophytic. Not heterophyllous. Leaves medium-sized; alternate; spiral; petiolate; non-sheathing; simple. Leaf blades dorsiventral; dissected (3-, 5- or 7-lobed or divided), or entire; ovate, or triangular; pinnately veined, or palmately veined; cordate, or hastate. Mature leaf blades adaxially pubescent; abaxially pubescent. Leaves with stipules (stipules filiform). Leaf blade margins entire, or serrate (rarely). Leaf anatomy. Hairs present; complex hairs present. Extra-floral nectaries absent.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary, or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; axillary; in racemes, or in panicles. Inflorescences axillary. Flowers pedicellate; medium-sized; regular; 5 merous; tetracyclic. Hypogynous disk absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; lobed; lobulate (5-lobed); hairy; valvate; exceeded by the corolla, or more or less equalling the corolla; regular; persistent. Calyx lobes ovate. Epicalyx absent. Corolla present; 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous (adnate to the base of the staminal column); hairy abaxially; hairy adaxially; white, or violet (lavender), or blue (purplish blue). Petals obovate. Androecium present. Androecial members indefinite in number. Androecium 50–100 (i.e. ‘many’). Androecial members adnate; all equal; coherent (connate; the filaments fused in a column surrounding the style); 1 - adelphous (the tube attached to the petals); 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens (or rather, half-stamens, each having only a half anther). Stamens 50–100. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; unilocular. Gynoecium 10–50 carpelled (i.e. 10-many). The pistil 10–50 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 10–50 locular (i.e. 10-many). Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; more than 4-branched (10-many, i.e. as many as loculi); apical. Stigmas 10–50 (i.e. 10-many); truncate, or capitate. Placentation axile. Ovules 1 per locule.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit 10–20 mm long; non-fleshy; hairy, or not hairy; a schizocarp (flattened; breaking into indehiscent or 2-valved mericarps). Mericarps 9–20. Dispersal unit the mericarp (beaked or spurred). Seeds 1 per mericarp.

Geography, cytology, number of species. World distribution: tropical America. Adventive. Australian states and territories: Western Australia and Queensland. South-West Botanical Province. A genus of c. 15 species; 1 species in Western Australia; 0 endemic to Western Australia.