Abelmoschus Medik.
Contenido
Descripción
Robust, annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs, often tomentose or hispid. Leaves long-petiolate, the blades palmately lobed, crenate or dentate, lacking foliar nectaries. Flowers solitary in the leaf axils; involucel of 4-16 bractlets, usually caducous, sometimes persistent; calyx spathaceous, splitting asymmetrically at anthesis and falling with the corolla; corolla large, yellow with a dark red center; androecium included, apically 5-toothed; style single with 5 sessile capitate stigmas. Capsules elongate, pubescent or hispid, 5-carpelled, dehiscent, with numerous seeds; seeds reniform, glabrous, pubescent, or squamous. Base chromosome number not known but large; reports have been made of 2n = 56, 58, 68, 72, 130, and other numbers.A
Discusión taxonómica
Abelmoschus is an Asiatic genus of six or seven species, some of which have been introduced elsewhere in cultivation, sometimes becoming naturalized. Abelmoschus esculentus is widely cultivated for the immature fruits, eaten as a vegetable (“okra” or “chimbombé”).A