Malvaviscus

4a. Cultivated, mostly sterile, rarely producing fruits; flowers pendulous, the corollas mostly 42-70 mm long; leaves ovate and sub-glabrous; widespread in gardens and often escaping or persisting following cultivation -…………………. M . pendulifiorus

4b. Wild and cultivated, usually fertile and producing red or white fruits; flowers usu-lly erect, the corollas mostly 15-50 mm long; leaves variable in shape and vestiture; throughout southern and central M exico, south eastern United States, West Indies, and rarely coastal areas of northern South America, occasionally cultivated and persisting elsewhere.

   5a. Leaves rather uniformly 3- lobed and mostly obtuse at the apex, strongly cordate; stems and petioles diffusely pubescent with overlapping stellate hairs that form a velvety vestiture only rarely exceeding 0 .25 mm high; mostly United States, just barely extending into Mexico along the Gulf coastal regions of Tamaulipas – M. arboreus var. drummondii