| General Information |
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| Distribution | A genus of 300 or more species, widespread in temperate, warm temperate, and tropical montane regions.
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Habit
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Usually annual or perennial herbs (Hawaiian species shrubs or subshrubs).
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Leaves
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Leaves simple, alternate, opposite, or basal, usually palmately cleft or
lobed, sometimes pinnately lobed or (in Hawai`i) not lobed, but merely apically toothed or serrate, usually stipulate and petiolate.
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Flowers
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Flowers actinomorphic or rarely (in Hawai`i) zygomorphic, solitary or clustered, axillary or terminal, peduncles and pedicels slender, pedicels subtended by narrow bracts; sepals 5, often mucronate or awn-tipped; petals 5, white, pink, or purple, rarely red; stamens (5)10; filaments ± connate at base, those alternate with the petals longer than others and with basal glands; ovary 5-celled, ovules 2 per cell.
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Fruit
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Stylar awn glabrous on inner side, usually remaining attached at its apex to the summit of the persistent column, usually recurving upward at maturity, but not coiled.
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Seeds
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Seeds smooth or reticulate.
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Chromosomes
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Wagner et al., 1990, 1999; Carlquist & Bissing, 1976; Carolin, 1964; Fosberg, 1936b, 1942; R. O. Gardner, 1984; Gray, 1854a; Hooker, 1837b; Medeiros & St. John, 1988; Rock, 1911; St. John, 1984a; Skottsberg, 1931a
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