Perennial, scabrous or pubescent herbs or shrubs, with hastate or angular leaves, and showy, axillary or paniculate flowers. Bractlets of the involucels several, linear. Calyx 5-toothed or 5-cleft. Stamen-column entire, or 5-toothed at the summit, anther-bearing below for nearly its entire length. Ovary 5-celled, the cells I-ovuled; style-branches of the same number, stigmatic at the capitate summits. Capsule depressed, 5-angled. Seeds reni-form, ascending. [Named in honor of V. F, Kosteletzky, a botanist of Bohemia.]

About 8 species, natives of warm and temperate America. In addition to the following, another occurs in the southwestern United States. Type species: Kosteletzkya hastàta Presl.

10 Kostel tzkya Presl Rel Haenk 2 130 Pl 70 1836 1210

1. Kosteletzkya Virginica (L.) A. Gray. Virginia Kosteletzkya

Fig. 2868

Hibiscus virginicus L. Sp. Pl. 697. 1753.

K. virginica A. Gray, Gen. 2: 80. t. 132. 1849.

K. virginica var. althaeifolia Chapm. Fl. S. States 57. 1860. K. althaeifolia A. Gray; S. Wats. Bibl. Index 136.

1878.

Perennial, erect, branching, 2°-4° high, more or less stellate-pubescent and scabrous. Leaves ovate, or hastate, truncate or cordate at the base, 2'-5' long, unequally dentate and often 3-lobed below, sometimes with an additional lobe or two at the middle, acute, velvety or pubescent; flowers pink, \Y-2Y broad, in loose terminal leafy panicles; bractlets of the involucels 8-9, linear, shorter than the lanceolate acute calyx-segments; capsule hispid-pubescent.

In salt or brackish marshes, southeastern New York to Florida and Louisiana. Bermuda; Cuba. Aug.