Lavatera punctata, commonly called Spotted Stalked Tree Mallow or Annual Tree Mallow, is a annual

Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates, flowers, and dies in a year or season. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed...

 herbaceous

Herbaceous

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

 plant belonging to the genus Lavatera

Lavatera

Lavatera is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the family Malvaceae, native to the Mediterranean region, central and eastern Asia, and Australia. A number of species previously listed in this genus have now been transferred to the related genus Malva...

 of the Malvaceae

Malvaceae

Malvaceae, or the mallow family, is a family of flowering plants containing over 200 genera with close to 2,300 species. Judd & al. Well known members of this family include okra, jute and cacao...

 family.

Description

Lavatera punctata reaches on average 20–90 cm (7.9–35.4 ) of height. The stem is erect and covered with scattered hairs. The leaves are alternate, trilobed with the central lobe larger than the others, petiolate with stipules, the lowest are kidney-shaped and slightly lobed, while the upper ones are pentagonal. The flowers grow in the axils of the leaves. Calyx is campanulate, five-lobed, with five triangular pink petals with purple veins, of about 15–3 cm (5.9–1.2 ), three times longer than the calyx. The flowering period extends from May through June.

Gallery

Distribution

Plant of western Mediterranean origin is distributed from the South of France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 to Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 and Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

.

Habitat

These plants grow at an altitude of 0–600 m (0–1,968.5 ) above sea level. They prefer rocky soils in sunny areas and fallow fields, hedgerows, beds of streams and road margins.

External links

• Biolib
• Lavatera punctata